Burn it All Away
by Takhira
Summary: Todd does not want to bring trouble this time; unfortunately, it like to invite itself over.  Warning: Gore.
1. Sparks

The door to the brig opened; Todd did not bother standing to greet John as he entered the small room.

The cat-like stares of a wraith were something to get used to. It was hard to tell if they were being pensive, or merely watching the dust floating in the air. As a species that often connected minds, few found any reason for subtle gestures or expressions. Todd was not one of the few who had mastered gesture, yet one could often pinpoint his current attitude by his expression. He was waiting for something…watching and waiting.

"So…" John said.

Todd said nothing. He kept waiting. That was all he was going to do and he knew it was now obvious. He was going to do what he wanted to do and not what he was told without a good reason and he knew John didn't have one.

"Aren't you going to say something?" John asked.

"Aren't you going to shoot me?"

"Hey!" John protested. "You did save earth."

The fact that Todd didn't change his expression in the slightest told him that wasn't an answer.

"Okay, fine. I won't shoot you. Now get up, Dr. Keller—"

Todd narrowed his eyes in resentment, not at John, but at his words. There was a line John didn't want crossed. Perhaps he knew where it was, perhaps he didn't, but John did. The problem was John was standing at the edge of the line he'd drawn himself and was coming after him. When John had said 'all bets are off' he had never imagined John would slip into the role of their common enemy, even in the slightest. Being held by Atlantis was something he was used to. He didn't mind anymore. John Sheppard, of all people, had done worse than merely take him prisoner. He'd taken everything away. No shoes, no clothes, no real name, no sky to see again, no galaxy of his own, no hope. Either John understood or he didn't, but either way he wouldn't want to be told what he'd done. Whichever it was, John had left him with one thing his previous captors hadn't: a promise. He remembered those biting words John had told him, how he had insinuated death in escape was better than wasting away locked away with nothing. Even if those words laced his promise, Todd was going to hold him to it; it was all he had and he was not going to let the last thing he had slip away without a fight.

"Stop looking at me like that!" John complained. He didn't know half of what Todd was thinking, but he knew what the wraith wanted. He didn't like it and he didn't want to think about why.

"You taught me that you kept your promises, no matter what," Todd said.

The two stared at each other for a long time. John kept trying to find a way around what Todd had said and Todd kept keeping him from doing so. Todd didn't need to say what he was thinking. Every second John was silently asked 'Well, what kind of human are you? I can either no longer trust you or I can and you're just waiting to find the time when you'd best like to execute me. Which is it?' every second he stared at Todd's eyes. He couldn't escape the fact that there was no disappointment, just plain expectation laid down so thick he found it hard to move looking at Todd's face. The worst part was that he knew it was his fault and he didn't know why that bugged him.

"I can't do this," John said and turned away, waving at Todd and giving up.

Todd watched him leave, still waiting.

…..

"I hear you've been rather quiet, lately," Woolsey said.

Todd didn't reply.

"That wasn't a joke. You've also been giving the guards a hard time."

Todd still didn't respond. He had refused to stand when told. He'd been dragged to his feet and manacled. He did obediently go where he was told, but that was the extent of his cooperation. John had taught him the importance of both defiance and trust. The cunning to twist those things like a pretzel was all Todd's. It was a combination that needed to be handled with care.

Woolsey pushed a clipboard with a document that spanned over ten pages on it towards Todd, who immediately shoved it back, almost too fast for Woolsey to catch it. "Dr. Keller is concerned about the effectiveness of your 'cure'.'" Woolsey said. "She wants to know what exactly happened and believes this could give us genetic information about the wraith."

"I see no point." Todd finally said, leaning forward and setting his cuffed wrists on the table. "If I agree, I am to be shot and this information will be useless. If I don't, Sheppard will eventually find a reason to keep his promise anyway."

"He has been sent on vacation specifically because of this situation."

"Then you can tell him of my insolence when he returns. There is no need to insult me by pretending I might choose to have any part of this."

Woolsey sighed.

"If you truly needed my consent, you would have used a language I could read."


	2. Kindling

Two days later, Todd had been dragged into a conference room again. It was empty at first, but when someone finally arrived, he couldn't help but be surprised, as he did not recognize this person. He seemed smaller than he actually was. He was struggling with a pile of books covered in bookmarks and a larger pile of notes. He was dressed differently than those on Atlantis, similarly to Sheppard when he dressed casually.

"I do not know you," Todd said. He didn't know most people on Atlantis. He didn't care to. "I was—No, we've never met before," the stranger said, sitting down at the opposite end of the table. "My name's Dr. Daniel Jackson."

"One of your men threw me to the floor and held be down with his boot to force these on me." Todd said, holding up his cuffs as best he could. "Is there an actual point to dragging me here?"

"Uh, well, I'm here to negotiate," Daniel said. He found it very comforting that his optimism wasn't angering the wraith. Todd's skepticism hadn't changed through their short conversation, but at least things didn't seem to be getting worse. In truth, Daniel enjoyed this. Todd was a mystery he was going to crack and given the guards and the cuffs, as well as the fact that Todd was already smart enough to know his chances if he did escaped both of those, he wasn't in any danger. The worst Todd was going to steal was his pen, and those were free.

"I am uninterested," Todd said steadfastly. To him, he knew enough of how things worked around here. If they wanted to negotiate with him, they'd try serious attempts, not these pathetic excuses. If they wanted to force something, they preferred the method that took the least effort and resources that still got the job done. He wasn't going to put up with anything that wasn't serious, and he doubted they actually wanted to negotiate.

"We're trying something different this time," Daniel said. "First, Sheppard's not going to kill you, even if this ends up going nowhere. Second, I was picked because I was the least threatening."

"You were chosen over Doctor Rodney McKay?"

"He wasn't too upset about the decision," Daniel said happily. He was making slow progress. He'd managed to get the wraith to talk more than he had all week. "Plus, I'm an archeologist… I study cultures and we don't know much about yours."

"That sounds like a very good incentive to keep such knowledge to myself," Todd said.

"There has to be some way we can make a trade where we both get what we want." Daniel didn't like this anymore. Todd was speaking as if things were facts, not actually reacting to them. If he reacted to something, he could use that as a chink in his armor, or at least have someway to keep the conversation form hitting dead-ends.

"You've taken a good many things from me. The only offer I have heard is that you can prevent Shepperd from shooting me…and I doubt you can stop him from doing what he truly wants."

"That certainly complicates this situation," Daniel agreed.

"I believe I already am a complicated situation for you… and I've seen the way you handle complicated situations."

Daniel refused to believe this was a futile effort, but it was quite a while until he spoke again. Todd wasn't trying to rile him up, but he kept saying every sentence as if that was going to be the last thing said in the room and Daniel would just pack up and leave. It was as if Daniel being in the room were a problem and he were trying to solve it…which he might be. "So… do you have any hobbies?"

"I do not understand." He didn't. It was a fact, so it was stated as such.

"Things you do," Daniel said, hoping to explain.

"I tend to end up in someone's brig often."

"I mean what do you like to do?"

"I prefer not to be in your brig."

Daniel put his head in his hand and sighed. Then he realized Todd was still being serious. It was like asking which way a river went and being frustrated that the answer was 'down'. "Really? Because I might be able to pull some string—that might happen."

"Where would I be, then?" Todd asked with guarded curiosity.

"A nicer room, I guess," Daniel said. "Maybe something with stuff to do…probably a shower."

"What kind of information would this be worth to you?" Todd asked, only to confirm that this was yet another ploy to give him the worst of the deal, probably none.

"Stuff like…Do you have any legends, myths, stories? Uh… maybe where you got your tattoo."

"Why would such information be important to you?"

"Well, body art tends to be the most—"

"Art?" Todd interrupted. He'd heard the word often; he just never paid attention to it, like 'football' or 'Batman.'

The wraith may have just wanted to know what gibberish he thought he was being screwed over with, but Daniel wasn't going to let that keep him from trying. "Art… art…" he muttered, sifting through notes, tossing others away, shoving books haphazardly to the side until he found a book buried on the bottom of the pile, which was now all over the table. He handed the book to Todd. "Here, look at this."

Todd stared at the book.

"I mean look through it," Daniel said, understanding that it was caution, not a contemptuous joke Todd was acting upon.

Todd carefully placed the fingers of his left hand, one by one, over the book and slowly wrapped his thumb under it, all on the opposite side to Daniel's hand. Tentatively he slid it out of Daniel's grasp, which he found surprisingly easy (moving the book and opening it wasn't tough, thanks to the manacles). He'd never been given anything by a human in this way, and in fact, had never been allowed to touch things much. He'd been allowed to type in a lab, but he hadn't been allowed to adjust the computer or move his chair.

He opened the book to a random page. One page was covered in writing he couldn't understand. The other had strange and somewhat jumbled picture. In the center was a decorated, yet nearly naked man with four arms. Three of his arms held… things, one looked like a book. His last hand was in a strange position. The man sat on a small person. He was surrounded by other figures who watched him. The background was blank, save for a large circle behind the main figure, resembling a stargate. Within the circle were clouds and mountains and a large tree.

"That is Shiva, the destroyer and teacher," Daniel said. "Here he's burning away ignorance, leaving only knowledge."

"He is not real," Todd said, tracing a finger across he picture slowly.

"No, it's a representation," Daniel said. "He's a concept."

"I do not understand the purpose of such a picture," Todd said, still interested in the picture.

"There are some things words can't really describe sometimes," Daniel said. "And even if there were, it'd be easier to just go right to the basic senses. Aren't there things easier to tell each other with minds than talking to each other?"

"I do not believe there is any information you would want from me," Todd said, slamming the book shut. He wanted to study the picture more. Daniel's words were right about it and he did not know why, but the man already knew he was curious and that was dangerous. Atlantis wasn't a group that would offer something so enticing to the wraith, no matter what it was without a greater gain for themselves in return. "What is it you that you want me to agree to when you have enough force for a vivisection any time you felt like it."

Daniel didn't like the way he said that. It wasn't the word, it was that he was back to talk in merely stating grim facts. It was the way the world worked, some law of nature to him. John was going to shoot him, Atlantis could do what they wanted to him on a whim, and objects were pulled towards each other due to gravity.

"Dr. Keller has no idea what she could find and she wants to talk to you about what she does—"

"If you are not willing to answer my question, there was never any reason to drag me here," Todd said angrily.

"Sorry, I was trying to make this more pleasant," Daniel said. He winced and decided to get it over with. "Dr. Keller scanned you, but they weren't made for wraith, so she wants a much more extensive look to see if your cancer's gone or if anything else went wrong instead. It involves a blood sample, but she also wants to perform a lumbar puncture and a trephine biopsy and they're… very, very painful and you'll need to hold very still… and be awake."

"I do appreciate honesty when humans deign to give it," Todd said, staring at the book. "I have no information you would want. I do not even understand the ideas you ask about."

"I think you do," Daniel said. "And even if you don't, it'd be interesting to find out why."

"In all the time I have known those on Atlantis, they have always suspected it was I who was hiding information. I have never known them to make a serious proposal to improve my situation while in custody; why should I believe yours now?"

Daniel realized Todd had found an advantage over them. The wraith may not have been very pleased by it, but he was obviously holding onto what he had. He could sit and rot in the brig and suffer humans annoying him or he could sit and rot in the brig, be stabbed by large, sharp needles that resembled power tools, and also suffer humans annoying him. Once again, he had an ultimatum for them to do what he wanted or not bother him. The problem with his plan, however, was he wanted them to not bother him.

"What about a contract?" Daniel asked. "It'd be pretty easy to adjust the notes on the procedure into one. He'd still have to agree to what you want out of this." He wondered how a wraith would sign his name.

Todd was finally intrigued in the proposition. Sure, the best he'd probably get would resemble the brig on the Daedalus with little more than a sink, a place to sit, and more room, but it would be comfort of some sort. He never cared for the formalities humans went out of their way to express around each other and he'd grown used to being insulted while in the same room, but he missed the recognition of his help. There was little he wanted; what he bothered to listen to the humans on Atlantis talk about sounded boring and pointless. Still, being able to ask for something pointless and actually having the request considered was a significant gesture on their part.

If they actually agreed to such compromises, he might even get them to leave him alone. The only thing worse than rotting in a cell was rotting in a cell with someone annoying you. Then again, what little he'd been told by this Daniel Jackson was intriguing. Pointless probably, but it was something of interest and a person worth talking to—those tended to be rare, even when one could travel an entire galaxy looking for one.

Still, that was all to come later. If he was ever going to have a chance to talk to Daniel, he had to give Atlantis what they wanted first. He shoved the book back at Daniel. He shouldn't be wasting the human's time when he didn't want them waste his.

"You can keep that if you want," Daniel said. "I own three and that's an old edition."

Todd reached out slightly, then stopped, all the while eyeing the book carefully, as if it were about to bite him. The only thing free he'd ever received from humans were gunshots or various kinds and insults. He pulled his hands back. There was a catch to this.

Daniel was confused. All this time Todd had been waiting for honesty and something in return. He'd agreed to negotiate an offer where he would still be a prisoner just to have a few more things. Now he was given a free thing, a free thing he wanted, and he was refusing. "It's not part of the negotiations; it's free. I'll tell the guards once we leave that I let you have it."

"Rodney McKay told me once that there are 'bonds' between human siblings," Todd said. "If I wished, I could have used such information in a way you would find cruel. Can you promise not to use the knowledge you gain in a similar fashion?"


	3. Samhara

Daniel set to work immediately, taking notes on wraith language, potential exploitable loopoles, and Todd's requests—this was the most difficult part, as he found himself suggesting things and then having to explain them.

Todd was very patient throughout the whole thing, though unnervingly quiet. Daniel had never had something watch him so intensely with no intention of disturbing him whatsoever, especially a person to whom nearly everything he wrote down was complete gibberish.

It took several drafts and a long discussion in the hallway away from Todd to finally be approved.

The contract was signed and Todd was moved to the medical lab. Daniel's comment that sometimes it could take even more work to get a human to agree to such things was not appreciated. He didn't mention that Todd had left the book on the table, still closed.

….

"What'd he do?" John asked after walking into Woolsey's office.

"I doubt it was his fault—for once." Woolsey said, setting his book down.

"So something did happen," John said, both proud of himself and dreading the mess he'd have to clean up. 'I told you so' isn't as gratifying when dangerous aliens were involved.

"He had a severe allergic reaction somehow. "

"He's a wraith, how bad could it be?"

"He's had arrhythmia and trouble breathing for the last three days. Dr. Keller had to cut open his chest and use open-heart massage twice. He's currently in observation, but Dr. Keller would rather you didn't bother him."

"Oh, he's always cranky," John said, literally hand waving the problem away. "He's fine now, right?"

"He's been having blackouts and showing signs of pica. Other than agreeing that he'd rather not have you around for a while, all he's said is that this is all similar to being bitten by the Iratus bug."

"What's pica?" John asked. Why couldn't medical problems have simple terms like 'heart attack' or 'severed limb' or 'dead'?

"Essentially it means 'eating strange things.'"

"Anything is strange for him," John said. Why was everything a long story when it came to Todd?

"He didn't notice he was eating a pen until he was halfway through," Woolsey said.

"So he got high," John said. "We can get more pens."

"If you want to speak to him, you can visit him in his room in a few days," Woolsey said. Todd didn't want to talk to anyone, especially the person best skilled at talking to him. Said person's only idea was to give the wraith office supplies. Meanwhile, they had a mystery concerning Todd and mysteries and wraith went together like peanut butter and napalm. If this situation was going to blow up, he'd like to know when and how so he could safely move it far, far away.

"When did he get a room?"

"He wanted one in exchange for agreeing to the medical tests. He's still under guard and he couldn't leave if he tried. If you feel the need to shoot him, try not to make too much of a mess."

….

The doors slammed shut behind Todd and he gave the room a slow, languid glance. It had been thrown together at the last minute and was minimal even for what he asked, but he was satisfied by it. It was his and it was as private as he was going to get—far more private than the infirmary or the brig at least.

He sat down on the bed and reflected on what he could remember of the past few days. He didn't understand Dr. Keller. He figured he never would. She was compassionate, which was an aspect far more complex than he'd suspected. The tests required a fairly uncompromising position and he was already uncomfortable just to be wearing the strange outfit he'd been force to wear on the Daedalus. She'd fetched him a shirt and even scolded the guards for laughing.

That had merely been convenient. He understood it even. It was everything afterwards that confused him. What she referred to as a 'lumbar puncture' was indeed intensely painful, but soon afterwards, he felt a pain in his chest and couldn't breathe. Minutes before, she turned her back to him so he could dress himself and then gently moved his hair away while trying to lessen imminent pain by talking. Suddenly she was someone else, flipping him over by his hair and shredding the shirt she'd just given him. She was screaming at people, grabbing things, violently burning him with strange devices and finally taking a knife to him.

She was there by the side of the bed, a curtain even pulled around it, after he awoke from his first 'blackout'. She was smiling, asking him how he felt, and then apologizing. All he could say was that he didn't understand what she was doing. He ignored her when she started waving a pen around in front of him, but she didn't show annoyance at having to explain the vision test before trying to get him to comply. She'd even put a new shirt on him under his coveralls at some point and put a blanket over him despite his injuries having healed. It was all in the name of compassion. It was inconsistent and forceful.

She left out of politeness, only to return to find him pulling half a pen out of his mouth just as he wondered when he'd started eating it. She yanked it away and tossed it behind her, screaming at him that he'd shredded the sleeves of his outfit in the same way. She loudly and rapidly demanded answers from him, yet told the guards to leave when they asked if there was a problem. Then she asked if he wanted John to come by, ignoring the lack of answers. It was random, irrelevant, and yet, she already knew he didn't want John to see him like that. She knew it was uncomfortable for him.

He didn't like her anymore. He didn't like her spontaneous changes in mood while claiming it was all in the name of the same emotion. He didn't like how she could get into his head so easily. He didn't like her constantly prodding him verbally and saying it was to help him. He used to like her; he'd pick her out of the crowd of humans because she was the opposite of the angry, violent, dominant queens he was used to. It wasn't her fear, but her willingness to talk to him without sounding like she wanted to kick him in the face with her boot. Now she flipped between the two and he couldn't predict when she'd change.

Something caught his eye and distracted him from contemplating the aggressive nature of compassion—or possibly the reverse. He made his way over to the object, curious as to why humans would have left anything extra in his possession.

It was the book Daniel had said he could have. He'd left it behind in the conference room. After all this time, someone had taken the time to return to him something that was essentially useless. It was no good to Daniel; he had said so. It was no good to anyone on Atlantis, they had what they wanted and they knew that as much as the book intrigued him, he wasn't going to give them anything for it. It was no use to him anyway; he could recognize the symbols on the cover, but he had no idea what they said.

After casting a quick glance at the surveillance camera, he picked up the book and sat down on the floor to do what he could in studying it. He was going to test how much of this was truly his and how much he could treat the contents of the room as his own property.

After some time, the doors opened and John walked in. Todd didn't look up or greet him as the doors closed. He wasn't in the mood for company, but he wasn't in the mood to tell John to go away either.

"Swingin' pad, dude," John said. "Let's throw a party, invite some chicks."

Todd ignored him. Wraith tended to tune out what humans said like similar to cats, even when the humans were talking at them. It took the proverbial can opener to get their attention.

"Not a fan of lightswitches, are you?" John said, looking around the room. Then he realized Todd wouldn't be able to adjust the lights if he wanted to. He also realized a wraith could see in the dark, so maybe Todd hadn't noticed. "Somehow, I'd expected more furniture," John said, cluelessly. There was only a dresser made out of storage boxes next to the door and a cot against the opposite wall. Todd's new clothes showed a bit more creativity but the same minimalistic sense of effort—that or they were picked out in the dark from a box of rags. His pants had old coffee and blood stains on them; his shirt looked like it had been used more than once to wax a car while it was on fire. The only new things were his fingerless gloves, obviously for human protection, as there were prominent bite marks on his arms and fingers. "Daniel needs to teach you about interior decorating," John said, looking at the few objects on the dresser. One was a long document written in the ancient language, probably the contract that let him stay here. There was a box of unlabeled crayons, half of them chewed on. Next to that was a small book entitled _Learn Colors_. "What's this?" John asked, picking up the book and flipping through it, noting that all English had been crossed out and a few short bits of ancient were written in the margins.

"Doctor Keller asked me to fill it out," Todd said. "She believes I am… 'color blinded.' I did not realize that it was here."

Most of the book was a series of color-by-numbers pictures, all of which seemed to be colored at random. "Well, the good news is you're not getting graded on this." John turned the page and this time the instructions were to draw a picture in red. Todd had scribbled a strange conglomeration of geometric shapes in purple. "You know, I think they meant a flower or a bunny or—nevermind." Why would a wraith draw a cute little bunny or a pretty flower? He was suddenly glad it resembled beginner's cubism; he didn't want to know what kind of 'pretty pictures' a wraith would draw.

"Is there a reason you are here?" Todd asked, flipping through a few pictureless pages.

"I thought… I'm usually better at this but… you've had a rough couple of days and I'm sure Dr. Keller said she didn't know it would happen, so…" John's train of thought rain out of steam and he was left wondering if fidgeting enough would push it along its tracks.

Todd finally turned from his book to watch John flounder. He wondered what was so important about waving his arms about that he needed to put the book down.

"I'm not really sure if this would even work, but… you wanna talk?"

"What do you expect me to talk about?" Todd asked. The humans were hiding something while he was the one they were overall suspicious of… again.

"Well, sometimes when…strange things happen, people want to talk about them and they feel better. I don't know how you guys handle it, so I thought I'd ask."

"I am sick," Todd said, closing the book and pushing it away.

"Um…" John said. He hadn't really planned this out. He had three days to put together a speech or make notes, but instead he hadn't even bothered to think a situation like this would impair his ability to form complete sentences. What did one say to a sick wraith?

Todd stood up and walked towards him. He shoved John aside, only to collapse after another step.

"You okay?" John asked, bending down. He realized Todd had his hand over his mouth. He grabbed Todd under his arms and did his best to lift the wraith to his feet and drag him to the small bathroom. He just barely managed to get Todd to the shower stall in time.

"Don't tell me you need another bug," John said, holding back Todd's hair as the wraith retched onto the shower floor. "Because we're all out of those."

Todd leaned back and batted John's hand away. "This is what it is like after surviving one of them," Todd said, resting against the bathroom wall.. "Only not quite as severe."

"By 'this' you mean?" John asked.

"Dr. Keller would know precisely what happened better than I would," Todd said. "It lasted for ten days before.

"You counted?"

Todd nodded.

"Having a heart attack for over a week doesn't sound like much of a cure or cancer," John said.

"Sheppard?" Todd asked in a tone that indicated there was going to be a follow-up question.

"Yeah?" John asked.

"Could you leave?"

"Sure," John said, standing up. He assured himself he was still being helpful. Then he wondered why he bothered. "I'll tell Dr. Keller, she'll want to know what happened. She wanted to know what you've been chewing on anyway; made it sound like you were a hamster."

"Would it be a serious problem if I were?" Todd asked. He was making things worse. He wondered if being whatever a hamster was qualified as having shoved things sideways. That look of expectation was back. It was almost prideful, almost satisfied.

"Forget it," John said. For someone who spent thousands of years on a ship full of other men, Todd sucked at male bonding. "I'll just tell her what colors you ate."

"What are those?" Todd asked, the expectation having left.

"Crayons?" John asked.

"Colors."

"Ask Daniel," John said. "You don't want me to leave just because I said-?"

Todd shook his head. "I do not stop you from keeping your word."

"…Right." John said, and left the bathroom. He grabbed the coloring book before standing at the door. He cast a quick glance at Todd, who just sat there. He wasn't upset, he was just thinking. Again. For the small moment he waited for the door to open, he wondered why he didn't want to leave Todd alone. As he walked down the hall, he realized Todd had been fully conscious during those ten days, which meant he'd been awake in the infirmary until he blacked out. Three days alone and in pain and when he had a chance, he refused to let John see him.

After every threat, after every trick, after several disturbing comments, now was the time his stomach was tied in knots the worst.

The only person Todd had to talk to about this, truly, was him. The only person John had to talk to about this was… no one. If he didn't know better, he'd say Todd had concocted a pretty good revenge for the threat of being shot.

"I get it, I'll fix this," he said. "Can you lighten up?" He suddenly realized how thankful he was that he was standing in an empty corridor.


	4. Ignorance

The humans on Atlantis had a strange concept known as 'personal space.' Apparently it only applied to them when they felt like it, which was arbitrary as far as Todd could see. Rodney treated him like furniture unless he accidentally said something disturbing—no one explained why it was disturbing when he was just trying to hold a conversation; it was Rodney who made up words and talked about things he knew Todd had no clue what they were—John liked to stand inches from him and glare, and neither Ronon nor Teyla appreciated him closer than a yard away.

While Dr. Keller showed appreciation for distance and clothing as best as she could with her profession—when she wasn't screaming and slamming things into him—she was gravitated toward disgusting and pointless things.

He wasn't allowed to keep people from entering his room or forcibly make them leave. She came into his room, apologized for it, and then went straight to the bathroom to throw the mess he'd made into a bag with no concern. While it was true he tended to spend most of his days inside of something that was alive, he didn't go poking at rotten and sick things. Hives were kept clean, that was one of the benefits of complete feeding and cocoons. The same person who cared about his health was picking at something covered in bile and complained he didn't understand her.

…

Later in the day he was finally brought to a conference room to speak with Daniel, who had gotten his hands on the coloring book. Very quickly it became evident that it would take more than just a dictionary and encyclopedia to cross the vast cultural gap. Not only was this a different culture that had been born wholly independent from any he'd ever studied; not only did Todd display very different thought patterns half the time despite being sentient—sometimes sapient depending on one's point of view—and very humanoid; wraith were colorblind. …In human terms, at least.

It was a strangely literal and apt metaphor. Todd saw what was there clearly, he just certain parts ignored because no matter how hard he looked at it, they were nothing; and he saw other parts that humans ignored with clarity, all in a different manner.

A few minutes after Daniel finally understood what it was that Todd was seeing, there was a knock on the door. With a shrug, he stood up and opened the door while Todd stayed where he was.

Dr. Keller was waiting outside with John. "May we come in? I think all four of you should hear this," she said.

"Alright," Daniel said and held the door open as the two entered the room. The guards stayed outside. Daniel noticed that Todd ignored the others and closed the door.

"Thank you," Dr. Keller said. "I didn't want this getting around, but I thought all of you should know what I've found so far."

"Who's been dressing Todd?" John asked. Todd was wearing an old shirt of Ronon's that looked like it had met a cheese grater on a bad day and a pair of pants John had given to Rodney years ago after rescuing him from a sunken jumper. The pants had been too big and apparently Rodney had decided to scribble notes with a permanent pen on one leg when John wasn't paying attention. How come someone who hated coveralls wasn't complaining about those?

"That was my idea," Dr. Keller said. "I gave him some old things out of the Lost and Found."

"Let's make sure Ronon thinks the shirt's still lost," John said.

"Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what the tests mean, but I think we need to figure some things out about Todd," Dr. Keller said.

"Well that's one heck of a magic trick," John said, looking at Todd who didn't reciprocate. "You've been lying in a bed chewing on things and you're already in big trouble. What are you hiding this time?"

"I don't think he knows, John," Dr. Keller said. "The Iratus Bug queen carried an endogenous retrovirus, and it's already caused hyperkalemia, pica, and syncope. I'm not sure what to do about it because messing with the transcription factors is what started the whole thing."

Todd was suddenly interested. He turned to her, but he stayed where he was and kept silent. The concern didn't go ignored, however.

"Yeah, I don't think I like the sound of that either," John said. "Does that come in English, maybe some subtitles?"

Dr. Keller sighed. "Endogenous retroviruses incorporate their own DNA into host cells. It's what we use for all gene therapy around here. One gene this one added caused his allergic reaction to heparin, the anticoagulant on the needle. It caused heart trouble, and now he's passing out on occasion and he ate three pennies I left on a table."

"We're not watching him because you want your three cents back, are you?" John asked.

"He said he had the same reaction after being bitten by the bug. When I performed a trephine aspiration during one of his blackouts with a different anticoagulant, nothing happened. I don't think I'm getting my change back anyway; he digested most of the clothes he ate, as well as the ink in the pen."

"So he's trying to eat something and he doesn't know what or why," Daniel said, not looking up from his notes.

"And neither do I," Dr. Keller said. "The problem with our gene therapy was that it changed the arrangement of the transcription factors—proteins that attach to DNA that regulate when genes are copied into RNA—they regulate what your DNA tells your body to do. It was supposed to just stop the genes that regulated his feeding organ and jumpstart the ones that regulated digestion. It also messed with the genes that controlled the creation of while blood cells in half his bone marrow and his body ended up both attacking and trying to fix itself while cleaning up the mess."

John figured that explained a lot about Todd's hive when it acquired the same problem from its residents. It was falling apart, fixing itself, trying to clear things out, and confusing itself in the process. He decided not to mention that the problem with the wraith on board was that nutritionally they still liked snacks made of humans. Todd was eating change and writing utensils—himself on occasion according to the stray bite marks—it wasn't a good idea to remind a wraith about their usual diet, lest they change their mind to return to it. "So the best thing to do is just ride this one out?"

"Probably not," Dr. Keller said. "The bug didn't just add one gene, it add a long list of them, though I think most of them are dead."

"So he's part zombie now?" John asked, looking at Todd. "That is a pretty good magic trick."

Todd just looked at him as if he were speaking gibberish—he probably was as far as Todd was concerned.

"Dead DNA is genes your body doesn't use anymore," Dr. Keller said. She had come here hoping to spend no more than two minutes explaining this. "Most of the genes aren't even complete. The bug apparently found DNA from a lot of things and stored it up, probably passing it down for generations until it found something it wanted to spread it to—I have no idea why—he's got DNA from other wraith, from the bug, from humans, and from ancients; all of those have leftovers from even more species."

"Wait, back up, you said 'ancient DNA'?" John asked. "How come he can't open doors or turn on lights?"

"That's one particular gene, and I checked: he doesn't even have a partial version of that one," Dr. Keller, replied. If there was a reason to watch Todd, she was going to do her best to make sure it was the right one… or two. "I ran a scan when he was unconscious and I found he was showing similar synaptic patterns to something we've already seen."

"Oh, great," John complained.

"I don't think I understand," Daniel said, looking up from his notes. Besides what he'd found out from talking to the wraith, the only things he knew of Todd came from a convoluted game of telephone from random people. He'd heard more consistent and comprehensive discussions about bigfoot. Mostly it boiled down to Todd was sneaky and annoying and had grown extremely destructive and threatening when the Attero device was turned on. Daniel didn't trust sneaky and annoying and a history of anger and violence didn't paint that great of a picture for someone, plus he was still a wraith. Still, this didn't shed any light on the conversation in the slightest.

Todd, however, did think he knew what this meant: John was mad he'd been up to no good. He knew where that would soon lead.

"Aww, come on, knock that off!" John complained and he turned to Dr. Keller. "Last time someone's DNA was messed with, Rodney was reading minds and bringing people back from the dead—wait."

"Actually, it's more like what we've seen from Davos, the seer Teyla knew," Dr. Keller said. "I'm not really sure what any of this means so far, but I didn't think waiting without telling you was the right idea."

"I think we've got another problem if we're going to figure anything out," Daniel said, looking at Todd.

Todd stared at the group, his head slightly tilted to the side. He was interested in what they were talking about, but somewhere in the conversation they might as well have all started quacking like ducks. If they wanted answers out of him, they had a lot of explaining to do. He still didn't know if John thought this was reason enough to shoot him.

But how would one explain ascension and the risks of getting close and failing to a wraith? John had spent most of his time with the ancients thinking about breasts and he didn't want to know how a wraith would handle the concept of spiritual release. It had been awkward enough with Rodney. He also wanted to prevent any trouble this could cause and he had no idea what that trouble could be or what to do about it. They needed an expert at ascension and understanding crazy aliens.

"Huh?" Daniel asked as John turned to him.


	5. Tirobhava

"We need you to talk to him," Dr. Keller said. "DNA's complicated, and I don't know much about wraith, let alone the bug. The dead DNA might not be dead, his body might try to turn it on any way, and I'm not even sure if the genes are in the right place on the genome. All I know for certain is he traded cancer for a lot of extra baggage on his double-helixes."

"We were talking before you arrived," Todd said, failing to understand that nuances of the new instructions regarding him.

"Then keep doing that," John said before turning back to Daniel. "You're the detective; see what you can figure out what we need to watch out for."

"It took me an hour just to see how he sees blue," Daniel complained.

"I've known him for years and I never found that out," John said. He didn't know when it would come up, but when a species that won't give their name to someone they talked with for years tells you about colors in an hour, that's a pretty good achievement in either diplomacy or drugs.

"What reason do you have to be concerned about my health?" Todd asked.

"Friends look out for each other," John said, smile. It was funny. At least to him.

Todd turned away to stare at the table top in resignation. It was a battle he would never win and a question he'd never get answers to.

"Yeah, I wouldn't have bought that either," John said before turning to Daniel to address both of them. "You two were having a nice chat anyway and Todd's not talking to anyone else. Just keep all this in mind in case you guys think of something. At least try to narrow down the threats we need to look out for. Besides, his tattoos aren't going anywhere. We, on the other hand, should probably give you two some private time."

The two left as politely and promptly as they could, though there was almost a minute of muffled discussion on the other side of the door immediately afterwards.

Daniel sighed. He'd essentially been told to find out the future by asking random questions to an alien who couldn't understand the concept of 'orange' and thought people were food while it was occasionally preoccupied with eating random things people weren't careful enough to keep in their pockets. He didn't even have an enthusiastic alien to talk to anymore now; Todd was still staring at the table.

"You two aren't really friends, are you?" Daniel asked. Why couldn't people have warned him he was walking into a soap opera for once?

"We never were," Todd said. "Allies on occasion, but tentative ones at best."

"So you don't really trust him?" Daniel asked. He'd covered two pages with notes about colors, another during the conversation with John and Dr. Keller, and another doodling. He had two mote notepads left. He was certain that he'd need a lot more just to understand Todd and John and he'd need to in order to keep from playing minesweeper while continuing his interviews.

"I have no reason not to trust him," Todd said.

"But you don't like him?" Daniel asked. He made a note to ask who was in charge of diplomacy around here and circled it.

"What is this relevant to?" Todd asked, looking up at Daniel. His eyes were narrowed and his bare brows were creased, but there as no anger, just disappointment.

"Great, now you don't like me either," Daniel said. Now he has less of a clue as to who had been messing with whose head.

"Not anymore," Todd said, suddenly nonchalant. Now that Daniel was finished pretending he was stupid, he could be blunt. "If something happens, John will kill me. It will happen and what I think of him will not change that. Before, you were honest, albeit in our own unique way. I understand your loyalty to your own people, but I have already told you that you can give me a serious offer or stop wasting your time pretending you don't need to. I no longer care how much you have to offer; you are just another human now."

"I think we have a failure to communicate," Daniel said. Todd was closing himself off, willing to bury his sense of wonder so far away that it would be just as hidden as he himself already was to the rest of the world just to protect himself. Daniel could even understand why just from what little he knew of Todd and he realized exactly where he went wrong. The problem was to convince Todd he didn't mean it.

"I am not going to stop you from talking," Todd said. "And I cannot force you to return me to my room."

"That's not really what I meant," Daniel said. "Actually, that is what I mean—"

"I do not understand."

"I know. I'm sorry," Daniel said.

Todd just stared, waiting for the rest of what Daniel was going to say so it would all make sense.

"You don't understand what that even means, do you?" Daniel asked, taking notes. Atlantis had been dealing with the wraith for five years. How come no one ever mentioned this?

"It is another of your meaningless formalities," Todd said. "Isn't it?"

"It means you regret an action or inaction that affects someone" Daniel said. He wondered if asking for a dictionary would help, but just figured he'd be wasting time flipping through pages and accidentally explaining meanings Todd wouldn't understand anyway.

"What is the importance in saying it?" Todd asked.

"Well, when people say it, the hope the person they are saying it to feels better that the regretted it and won't hold it against them."

"It does not fix anything, though?" Todd asked. He was seriously starting to doubt his knowledge of a language he'd spoken for thousands of years.

"Not physically," Daniel admitted. "But it means that whoever did something wrong realizes it and wishes they hadn't. It's supposed to make people feel better."

"For what purpose?" Todd asked. "Again, why are such feelings relevant?"

Daniel sighed. An hour and a half ago, he'd been talking about crayons and coloring books—albeit with an alien from another galazy—and the same person had just deconstructed language and the most basic element of human nature to rubble and was asking him why it had crumbled so easily. "I don't see why they wouldn't be," was all he could say.

"Because there is no need," Todd said. "If you want something, you force it. We do not belong to the same group, so there is no need for any attempt at …companionship. Besides, why would a human find the need to be interested in the feelings of a wraith? Whenever we two kinds meet, one takes by force what they want: weapons, stealth, surprise, power, ultimatums.

"I am over ten thousand years old; do you really think I can't see though the same lie Sheppard is giving me?"

"I…" Daniel started. He realized repeating himself would just strengthen Todd's belief that he was 'just another human.' He had to answer this in a way that a completely different kind of person would answer. "There's a term for what John was doing. It's called 'patronizing.' It means someone treating someone as if you know better than them and don't take them seriously; you deny them the free will of having a say about the situation as if they don't deserve to.

"I'm not trying to do that. I actually want 'companionship' as you call it because I don't take things by force; I prefer empathy."

"Having empathy is no reason to act on it," Todd said. He was intrigued, but still cautious. Perhaps Daniel was patient and careful in spinning his lies, perhaps he actually had what he'd promised in the beginning.

"No, but it's more fun," Daniel said. "Besides, what if need your help and don't have enough force to make you and nothing to offer you in return but to be friends?"

"Then perhaps you are not very intelligent at all," Todd said, this time his comment was not guarded, but merely in passing. There was no hint as to whether he was speculating and wanted an answer or remembered something.

"If you don't want to tell me, I can understand," Daniel said.

"You would?" Todd asked. This sounded like a trick again.

Daniel shrugged and smiled. "Sure. There's other stuff to talk about. I'm not going to force you to answer it."

Here was something strange again. After all that, Daniel hadn't surrendered in resignation, he had tossed t aside and the way he said it reflected how he had asked in the first place, meaning that could have been tossed aside if Todd had merely refused. But Daniel had bothered with so much explanation, receiving none for himself in return and did not even wanted what he had originally asked for in return. Until he was forced, Todd had no reason to answer him at all.

There was a catch to all this kindness, however. Daniel did want something in return: he wanted Todd to act upon his own empathy. While there was no reason why, this was what he expected: not a return of favors, but to earn his own favor someday through establishing them both as a group. Hives, military teams, family, and affection had their necessity as groups and Daniel was trying to establish one that wasn't any of those but was still a group held together with reciprocity and mutual trust based on it rather than force.

Ultimately, that had been the point of the explanation. He gave Todd something free, expecting only that Todd choose on his free will to believe he was not behaving the way John was, despite the similarity in questions.

However, while groups that were formed around survival depended upon each other to stay alive, a group such as this didn't… or at least it allowed an individual to break from the group freely, to wander off and leave the remainder to a different fate.

"When you have the information you seek, will you continue with such a pact?" Todd asked. "Indeed it would be far more pleasant ad it is something Sheppard never once offered, but you will certainly tire of it and there will be no more use."

"I certainly hope not," Daniel said. "The point of being friends is for it to work in any situation."

"Even with a wraith?" Todd asked, no longer cautious despite his implication.

"As far as dangerous aliens go, I've known worse," Daniel said. "So: Yes."

Todd's reaction startled Daniel, as did the guards throwing open the door at the noise. Todd was still in his chair, but the noise could be heard down the hall. He was laughing.


	6. Inside and Outside

Todd continued laughing as Daniel assured the guards over and over than everything was fine and slowly shooed them out the door one by one. By the time Daniel was about try resuming the conversation, Todd's laughter had died down to a chuckle and a disturbing grin.

"What exactly is so funny?" Daniel asked. First the wraith was taking things too seriously, now he was laughing randomly. He almost thought Todd was doing this on purpose.

"You want so badly for me to believe that you care about me the away you would a human," Todd said. "And who would you throw in my cell to keep me alive?"

"Well, I can't really—"

"Human convictions fall apart so easily from your morals, don't they?" Todd asked.

Daniel didn't have an answer. He didn't want to. It would just be more irrelevant explanations and likely Todd would see holes in half of them.

"I do wish to say that yours are much more… comforting than Sheppard's."

"Thanks," Daniel said. Todd had essentially said he only trusted Daniel as far as he could throw him, but that he could throw him farther than he could John, to continue the analogy. However, this now meant he had an obligation to keep and that he should stop acting like John. He had stalled on his most important question out of politeness at first and had continued due to the cultural barrier that seemed to grow like kudzu vines. He might as well take a whack at it, though; he might actually hit the proverbial plant. "I've been wondering: What do wraith believe about ascension?"

There was a long pause as Todd considered the question, his gaze drifting over the table and soon settling on the coloring book, as if considering the colors while pondering an answer. "It would be easier to answer another question, first."

"Alright," Daniel consented. An answer was an answer and if he felt he needed, he could always just remind Todd he wanted to know more about ascension. Todd had made it clear that the closer they were, the looser with etiquette he liked to be. Daniel just hoped this went no further than putting feet on the couch and forgoing formalities.

"We cannot see the patterns on each other's clothes, let lone the blood and dirt we tend to accumulate on them," Todd said. "They are meant to clothe the wearer for the most part; the patterns are only there for those who would be allowed to touch them."

"I don't think I understand how that's relevant," Daniel said.

"We barely have personal interest in other wraith," Todd said calmly, though wishing he didn't have to practically hold Daniel's hand and spell out the connection. "Why would we have one with another species, as interesting or helpful as they may seem at the time?"

"I see," Daniel said, not hiding his disappointment. There was no need to around Todd, who likely suspected he wanted some sort of new philosophy or religion as an answer. The wraith didn't even have a word for it. It was… there. That was it. They didn't care what the ancients did because they left. No more food, but also no more fighting. It wasn't something to investigate; it was something to ignore. Daniel realized he might have asked a fish about air.

"What is it?" Todd asked with honest curiosity. "The ancients seemed to grow more and more obsessed with it, and now more and more of you are interested. What do you achieve with it?"

"Enlightenment," Daniel said, almost instantly. As long as his answer avoided mentioning super-powers, he was fine.

"That is it?" Todd asked. He had found more interest in the color green.

"Mostly," Daniel said. "You ascend to another plane of existence."

"This is desirable?" Todd asked.

"For the ancients and some people, yes," Daniel said. "It's a spiritual and mental achievement. You can know everything that is happening in the galaxy."

"I don't care for this galaxy." Todd said. "If the ancients from the Pegasus Galaxy knew what was happening, why did they do nothing?"

"They can't; they aren't allowed."

"So it is a point of stagnation," Todd said, obviously coming to his own conclusion of what ascension was.

"Well, it…" Daniel started. He really didn't have anything beyond that. "Uh…" That didn't count, did it?

"Were the unable to prevent others from suffering the same fate?" Todd asked. Truly ascension had to be a mistake, just as his kind sought earth as a feeding ground only for it to be revealed how heavily armed even a small piece of the planet was.

"Um… I don't think you understand."

"I am unsure of that," Todd said. "All I know is that I cannot see what you see, like many of these… crayons." He was still unused to the word. Then again, he never knew so many tools were used to put pictures and writing to paper, especially when they were given to him by those who used computers for everything, including signs above doors. They were nothing but cylindrical bars of wax, nothing but blues and light gold with many shades of white and black among them. Yet, they were still a testament against this 'ascension' itself as any mere thing, from blood and dirt and ones hand to thousands of years of science just to create colored liquid had produced images even he found himself in awe of. Such things left behind by more primitive people surpassed those of the wraith in abilities to shape and influence a complete stranger's mind.

"How would one avoid ascension?" Todd asked. "It sounds…." Although the wraith spoke the same language as the humans that had intruded upon their galaxy and caused them no end of problems since, the two groups did not share all words, despite feeling similar about each other overall. The wraith had developed without a religion. Their ancestors looked at the stars and thought they were pretty and things to navigate by and the thoughts never changed over the generations. There was no sense of hell, no purgatory, nothing beyond death, and—though many would be able to understand the concept without the mysticism involved—of hell. "I have no words."

"But you have… an idea," Daniel asked.

"Not one you would…appreciate," Todd said.

"Ah," Daniel said, ultimately disappointed. "I just thought…" Daniel could understand perfectly, as he himself couldn't just sit in the state of ascension and do nothing, but he hoped Todd would have something new to say about ascension.

"What did you hope to learn of it?" Todd asked. To him, it really was like describing air to a fish, except this fish knew he couldn't breathe it.

"We've met several races and most of them saw ascension as the greatest, penultimate thing there was to achieve in life. They all had different interpretations of it, but they all felt ascension was something good. Despite things that seem similar, the wraith are the most alien species we've encountered that knows about ascension. I just thought there might be a bit more to it for you than… just that."

"I cannot offer you more than that," Todd said. "I have no friendly words for it and of al the brethren I've known for so many centuries know less than I do now. We thought the ancients ran away in cowardice, and it appears we were right."

"That's not quite true," Daniel replied.

"I am interested in how you would know," Todd said. It was true to him. It was true to his people. While that didn't mean it was true to the universe, it was the truth so far. Daniel, so far, wasn't presenting anything that could say it was false.

"It's not about running away," Daniel said. "It's about… transcending, moving past fear."

"You have seen it, then?" Todd asked.

"I've ascended," Daniel said. "Twice." Todd was interested, but if he was interested in it for power, he was amazingly skilled at lying about it. He sounded and acted confused, the conversation had no definite direction, and Daniel was leading it. Daniel had already explained that when ascended, one cannot use powers—which hadn't even been mentioned yet. Todd was either merely curious or was smart enough not to have gotten himself stuck on earth n the first place.

"You managed to escape, then," Todd said.

"I left voluntarily," Daniel explained.

"You said that wasn't allowed."

"You can't use anything you gained while ascended," Daniel said. "I just… went back to being human."

Todd was quiet for a few moments as he pondered the statement. His expression was that of someone who had tasted coffee for the first time, unsure of the flavor, trying to shut out the bitterness, and yet curious enough to try more. "Why did the ancients not return after the wraith decided to hibernate?"

"I have no idea; I didn't ascend in that galaxy," Daniel said. It was a good question, actually. "I don't think they'd tell me if asked, them."

"Can one force me to ascend?" Todd asked. Again, he was either a great liar or he wasn't understanding as his voice hinted on fear of this misrevelation.

"No, one has to do themselves," Daniel said. "Although, just choosing to doesn't make it happen. It's… It can be difficult for many people."

"What if one fails?" Todd asked, obviously expecting some version of torture to be involved.

"It depends on how close you are to enlightenment," Daniel said. "Either nothing happens, or you just die."

"You are sure that it is enlightenment?" Todd asked.

"It..." As Daniel struggled for words, he began the metaphor of teaching a fish was becoming more and more literal. There was no way a fish could experience air the way something with lungs could. It wasn't just a tactile impossibility, but completely different mental phenomenon. To accomplish it would take the ability to transfer unconscious thoughts from one person to the next, and the only things capable of that—"Todd isn't your real name, is it?" Daniel asked.


	7. Acariya

"We do not have names, not the way you do," Todd said. While outwardly he wondered where Daniel was going with this, if anywhere, he inwardly was happy to have finally found a human who understood something so basic and seemingly intuitive.

"Because you talk to each other in your own heads, so to speak," Daniel said. This was the most difficult language barrier he'd ever found and he wondered why it hadn't been obvious to him before.

"Indeed," Todd said. "We know each other by how another's mind feels to us. It is… at the closest, it is similar to the sense of smell. I don't think it can be any better described than ascension. Perhaps that is why: ascension s the invoking of a new sense one is not aware of yet."

"That certainly seems like a possibility," Daniel agreed. Oma had told him twice that he always had the ability to ascend within him, that there was nothing new he had to take or create for it. "Can you use that, though? Can you read me mind or whatever it is you do to learn about it?"

Todd chuckled loudly, though nowhere near as boisterously as his first outburst. "I am not so foolish Daniel," he said, struggling with the name. "It is already in my nature to do something Sheppard will consider too defiant to warrant letting me live; I am not about to tempt him with that. As much as you know I am no threat, no one else would believe you, especially when they asked you to find any danger I pose to them."

"So you could if you weren't in danger?" Daniel asked.

"It is certainly an enticing offer," Todd said. "However, whatever her true intentions actually were, it has been the unfortunate 'mistakes' of Dr. Keller than have already shown me what I believe is some sort of 'new sense.'"

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

Todd reached over and pulled the coloring book towards him. He flipped through pictures of clowns, flowers, and even a bunny before he arrived at the page he wanted. Daniel hadn't translated the writing precisely, not wanting to explain just yet how the goofy shapes correlated to real things, so Todd had no clue what he'd been coloring, merely matching up numbers, most of the time guessing inaccurately as to what was right. He turned to the page he'd been instructed to draw his own picture. He handed the book to Daniel, not noticing that to the human it was upside-down. "I constantly saw this after I was bitten by what you call an Iratus bug. There were what I believe you would define as colors to it."

Looking at the picture, Daniel realized Todd wouldn't have given a better coloring job to it anyway. When all you ever saw was dark and light and two different aspects to them, you didn't dwell on those differences enough to put them on a spectrum. However, the monotone of the picture was helpful in this case, as Daniel instantly picked up on patterns of the shapes Todd had drawn. "When exactly did you see this?" he asked, wondering what he'd just discovered. He hadn't seen more than three pages of the coloring book after it had been filled out.

"It was during what Dr. Keller refers to as 'black-outs'," Todd said. "It was similar to what your kind call 'dreams', if I have the word correct."

"So you have no idea what this is?" Daniel asked.

"Not in the slightest," Todd said, shaking his head slightly. "Is it perhaps a concept?"

"No, I think this is real," Daniel said, retracing the swooping pattern of dots. The signs of ascension were manifesting powers and speaking ancient, the symptoms uncontrollable and unnoticed by the one producing them. This, however, was something wholly different, which didn't make it any less dangerous. Something was going on inside Todd's rearranged head and Daniel had no idea what it was. He only knew what it wasn't. It wasn't anything he'd seen before.

….

Todd wished he could hibernate. He wished he were on a hive. He wished He could be with other wraith. He wished he could at least see the stars. His people may have been nomads, traveling the vast emptiness of the small void of the Pegasus Galaxy, but one of the first things a child learns is the concept of home.

This wasn't his room, merely something borrowed from the humans. He didn't live here, he was kept here. These weren't his people. They no longer feared him, but now they resented him. No one wanted to have to guard him. No one wanted to fill out the paperwork about him. A select few wanted only to explore ways he could cause them trouble so they could prevent such things. He was something to be explored. Not even the only person who bothered to seek answers about his mind could help him. Not that he would, either. Human empathy only went so far.

If only they would allow him something akin to hibernation, he wouldn't feel so strange, he wouldn't wonder so much about their motives, he wouldn't find them so cruel. He'd never experienced anything like this before, fighting against darkness that he should be at home in, haunted b the room spinning when he knew everything was still. He wouldn't he in a corner, his hands around his legs, watching images blur together as he lost track of time. Hibernation would grant him so much peace, nothingness, dark and true. It would be tranquil nothingness, a quiet peace where he could let himself drift away for hours and his mind could settle itself without him.

Atlantis was no longer a respite. It no longer offered hope. Perhaps it never did, perhaps it had ceased being one when he had not noticed. All he knew what that it could never offer it again.

Todd kept trying to close his eyes, to think about something else, sometimes driven not to think at all. The only alternative was to watch the empty room swirl and shift and wobble as his dizziness tried to adjust his vision. He wasn't in the mood to contemplate sense; he couldn't stand it and it was sickened, literally numbing.

The visions themselves offered no comfort. They blended in frightening ways, accompanied by horrible tactile and mental sensation, speeding through their arbitrary repetition so fast he no longer could separate them or tell what the experiences were. He futilely kept trying to drive away the sights of a strange mask clammed over his face as he struggled to breathe; a vast, dark, ever-ending sky full of stars he knew none of his kind would ever see again the same way; he felt a tube shoved down his throat, his body trying to refuse it despite it being to only way to regain the ability to breathe; he remembered a distant memory: a feeling of truly burning alive, flames quickly licking their way through flesh to hungrily eat at bone—a memory that wasn't his, something he'd seen long ago, given to him by someone else pleading for help he knew he could never give to another. Other memories flowed in, jumbling this moreso, images he did not understand, bits of things said by Genii, being sliced open by Dr. Keller, even parts of the war against the ancients.

The worst of it all was that he'd done all this before. He'd already known this dizziness, this onslaught of images and memories; he'd known it all while abandoned and ignored. Back then, he was trying to save his own life. Now there was no chance to preserve it, no bargains, no plea for compassion, no ultimatums, not even true usefulness.

Even if he was of some interest to Daniel, the man wasn't going to keep him fed. He had no power to keep Dr. Keller's fears from growing too great. Even when Todd had pointed it out, Daniel refuse to truly believe that morality was some superficial quality to himself rater than something that soaked him to the bone. All the man could do was tempt danger, to ask for what he knew was dangerous and call it trust, to insist hard-learned skepticism didn't apply to him, and worst of all, to claim that the nature of others was malleable. He was as dangerous as the information he provided, two aspects which would merely prove to enhance each other. He had made himself and inevitability.

It was inevitable that Todd would do something to try to escape. It was inevitable that John would shoot him for it. The universe wouldn't have it any other way. But now Daniel had made himself part of the fabric of reality as well. He was going to stop one of them, depending upon how his frivolous morals dictated. It would happen; he had defined himself as law.

It frightened him. He didn't want to admit it, not to himself or anyone on Atlantis, even Dr. Jackson himself. He didn't like it, especial as his fear seemed artificial, almost an illness. It had no source; it was merely fear, a feeling of being cornered and alone. It was not going to be denied, no matter the logic or consolation Todd could conjure up.

Suddenly, he realized someone was screaming at him. In his dizziness, he hadn't realized someone frantically shaking him, trying to get his attention. He slowly turned to whoever it was so concerned with him, the dizziness increasing and making the room wobble violently.

"Are you tripping?" John yelled at him.

"Huh?" Todd asked, carefully placing a hand on his head. The dizziness was messing with his coordination.

John rolled his eyes. "Are you still high?" John asked, as if Todd had trouble understanding English. Great. If Todd wanted to talk, he didn't know the terminology. Why couldn't he just watch football with some beer with the wraith and no longer have a problem to solve? Why did things always involve not only talking, but in a complicated way?

"I do not… understand," Todd said. He barely finished his sentence. It wasn't the dizziness this time or the fear that threatened to take over, but an object: John's watch. All this time he had assumed it was meaningless decoration—he still did—but for one he found human accoutrements significant. Now his fear was suddenly real in his revelation. John's seeming refusal to make sense didn't help matters.

"Are you alright?" John asked.

"No," Todd managed to gurgle out. Apparently coordination wasn't he only sense of his that was affected.

"Do you want me to get Dr. Keller in here?" Jon asked, doing his best to seem like he was genuinely concerned. He was, he just wanted to make sure Todd got the clue. He wasn't good at this, especially not with wraith. He knew what he should do, he just sucked at it.

"I would rather she was not here," Todd said.

John shrugged and sat down, leaning against the wall, making sure to give Todd his space. "You don't look so good," he said.

"I do not feel well, if that is what you mean," Todd said semi-ineptly. At least John was making more sense. Soon it'd be his fault for not communicating well. At least he'd have an excuse, albeit a poor one.

"You're not going to hork up a lung again are you?" John asked.

"I am not sick, Sheppard," Todd said, wincing at a sudden and temporary intensity in the general wobbliness. "This is not pain, it is…highly unpleasant."

"I don't think I can get you anything but a doctor," John said. He remembered that every time he ended up in the infirmary, he got to play with a handheld game console. It would be wroth a shot to help Todd, but he doubted anyone would let him have one—even less so if they feared he'd eat it. Dr. Keller hadn't made any progress in that area… not that anyone was looking forward to Todd getting back to his original diet.

"I sincerely doubt that would end well even if I needed one," Todd said. He wasn't fond of being stabbed or sliced open, no matter what the cause. "Are you here because she is interested in…whatever physiological anomalies I have?"

"No, I asked to be notified if you… started acting weird like this," John said. He didn't want to admit he'd used the words 'crying or stuff.' Unless he was actively and deliberately being his usual pain-in-the-ass, dignity was something John would readily give him. He just didn't know how right now.

"What exactly are you concerned about? Todd asked.

"Y'know… the talking thing," John said.

"I have lived through this before," Todd said. "Discussing it would be… superfluous."

"You sure you don't want to talk?" John asked.

"Are you sure you would answer?" Todd asked back.

John bit his tongue. No wonder Todd didn't want to talk. Even asking if he should was a loaded question. "Sure."

"Truthfully?" Todd asked immediately

John decided he was going to punch whoever had taught Todd the meaning of the term 'loophole'. "You're not going anywhere, are you?"

"You know very well that you would not let me," Todd said, a wry smile on his face. Even in such overwhelming artificial panic, he could find something amusing. John was, if nothing, a source of amusement. The amusing thing was that he wouldn't find it amusing at all.

"If I can," John said, rolling his eyes at himself. He had volunteered for something he knew he'd suck at. It was like Rodney deciding to play golf with him if he were having a bad day. He decided he needed to make a contingency plan if in case that ever happened. He was good at watching football and drinking beer, but he doubted it would have the right affect on Todd even if he agreed—or understood the sport in the first place. "I'm not good at this, just so you know."

"Then why do this at all?" Todd asked. Humans were so complicated when they weren't food.

"Because you need it," John said.

"There are many things I need," Todd said, closing his eyes. Nope, even with John talking, that wasn't a good idea.

"Well, this I can do…sort of," John said. He hadn't thought he'd need to explain talking about bad experiences to a wraith, let alone more than before.

Todd didn't feel like bothering to tell John he meant he needed peace and quiet from the symptoms Dr. Keller had inadvertently given him. John was rambling as it was. "Why didn't you kill me after we escaped together?"

"Because it was the right thing to do," John said before he realized he had even said it.

"I see," Todd said. It was as simple as that. But simple wasn't easy. The two of them were going to meet full-on as forces. There was no way around each other anymore. Daniel, being a third force, was not going to maneuver around them either. It was simple as that. Not at all easy. Things had changed and though Todd didn't know why, he at least knew they had.

He couldn't think this through. He could barely think clearly at all. "I have nothing else to ask at the moment." He probably never would. He doubted John would be upset about that.

"You don't want to say anything?" John asked.

"I do not think so," Todd said, no longer trying to hide his exhaustion or dizziness.

"Do you want me to leave again?"

"You may stay if you wish," Todd said, wincing.

John didn't move, not four hours until he was called elsewhere. Todd never said a word.


	8. Rudra

Todd was on the floor when Daniel and John entered his room. He had collapsed in another blackout hours ago. No one really wanted to move him and John doubted he'd appreciate the 'help'.

"Is he alright?" Daniel asked. He barely knew how wraith saw colors. First aid was too far off to even think about, let alone attempt.

"He's fine," John lied. Todd had stretched the definition of 'fine' lately. He was alive; the Atlantis lifesigns monitor had told them that. "He's asleep. Sort of." He looked asleep. To his knowledge, wraith could sleep anywhere pretty easily. "It's kinda like goldfish. Y'know, they sit there…"

"Should we get Dr. Keller? Daniel asked.

"She doesn't know what to do when he blacks out," John said, shrugging. "I guess we just wait."

He was right. After a few moments of the two having no idea what the etiquette of having barged into a wraith's room while he was sleeping, Todd woke up, sitting up and staring at the two immediately.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asked.

"I am well enough," Todd said. He didn't seem to have minded them coming into his room while he was face-down on the floor.

"Next time try being on the bed, not next to it," John said as Todd stood up. "Did you eat soap?"

"You are not amusing," Todd said. "Has something happened?"

"Not quite," Daniel said, rather proud of himself, and indicating towards the door. "I want to show you something." It wasn't everyday that a human was interested in what he'd figured out. He wasn't going to miss a second of having an alien cling to his ingenuity while he still had the chance.

Todd stood where he was and looked at John. "There are no cuffs." The second there was trouble to get into Todd looked not for an escape or a way to continue, but the gauge John's reaction.

"I got permission for you to go without them. There'll be guards anyway," Daniel said.

"I'm not going to shoot you until you actually do something stupid," John said. "Knock it off."

"I am still not inclined to leave this room," Todd said. "Recently, surprises have not been beneficial to my well-being; my current status being case in point."

"Are you just doing this because you can?" John asked. He hated when Todd's schemes made him someone' babysitter… especially Todd's babysitter. The problem was that he had acted the same way in the genii cells. Damnit, why did Todd have to learn form him? Why couldn't he just do what he wanted, not what he did?

"I have been given no reason to leave other than that two humans want me to leave," Todd said. "I have no desire to leave what is my own, especially where armed soldiers are likely to find my slightest movement a danger to your entire planet."

"I can't really describe it, but I wanted to show you something outside," Daniel said. "I'd rather do this were there aren't security cameras or things like that."

Now Todd was finally intrigued, though he spent a moment to consider the offer, still watching John.

"I'm not going to shoot you for being boring," Jon said, crossing his arms. He could stand here al day if Todd could… he probably couldn't, but he didn't want Todd to know that. Thankfully, he wouldn't have to try for very long.

Todd turned to Daniel. He took his time studying Daniel's face. As much as the archeologist intrigued him, he was no friend. An ally in some cases, but no true friend. Daniel wanted to be a friend, which could be both helpful and detrimental, depending on the circumstances. Todd had to know exactly what those were before proceeding.

Despite the strange display of free will and needless caution, Daniel still seemed happy at something he'd found, wanting to show the discovery to the person who'd be the most interested in listening to him.

To disappoint Daniel could be to lose an ally, which could easily lose him what little property he owned and any chance of leaving where he was locked up, whether he owned it or not. Yet, Daniel was suspiciously happy; either discarding or overriding caution in her eager he was to show Todd. Something was about to change. Something was going to drive them away from each other, severing their alliance.

Todd decided he was not going to be the one to start such a change. He'd leave it up to the humans. It was always far more predictable that way.

"Lead the way, Daniel."

…

The coastal San Francisco wind is a fierce, territorial beast, known for angrily making its intentions and presence known. It was sharp on the skin and stinging against one's eyes and ears, hating al those who even tried to sense its saline domain. The harsh blast felt dry as it pulled on one's hair, twisting the locks into tiny whip-like tendrils, deceivingly soaking any who dared face it with harsh ocean mist.

"That's it!" Daniel yelled, bothered only by the noise of the wind.

"The ocean?" John yelled.

Todd was too absorbed in trying to hold his hair out of his face to bother paying attention to their conversation.

Daniel held up a piece of paper in front of Todd, who paused in trying to fight his long hair to examine at it. John leaned over to get a glimpse of what all the fuss was about. It wasn't instant for either of the two, but once they saw it, they couldn't see the picture any other way. The geometric shapes became the foreground, almost a frame. Beyond that were vague wavy lines and further down were straight lines connecting with curves.

Before it had been an incomprehensible mess. Now it was an understandable mess. Todd had attempted to draw the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from this very balcony. The fog wasn't present and he'd drawn what was probably a boat, but the match between the scene and the picture was too close to ignore.

Daniel probably had a long rambling explanation as to why the picture was the way it was, but John felt his was better. "He can't draw." Not even Todd was impressed at his own artistic skills.

"It is… unattractive," Todd said, returning his focus to his hair

"Well, we didn't build it for aliens," John replied. He wasn't' going to let a wraith critique Earth's architecture. Especially one who had just started learning about art.

"What is it?" Todd asked. For al he knew, he was shown a far off piece of garbage. It sure looked like it.

"It's called The Golden Gate Bridge," Daniel said proudly. "It's somewhat famous on this planet."

"I'd have started with stick figures," John said. "I think it's too soon to start on landscapes."

"I was teaching him art history, not how to make art," Daniel complained. "He did this on his own."

"When the hell did you see the Golden Gate Bridge?" John asked. He hoped this was one of the less significant things Todd hid from humans, such as why he didn't mind wearing Ronon's old clothes. He hated when it was hidden from him whether or not he should be worrying about something, especially something weird… weird for Atlantis.

"I saw it when I had visions after I was bitten b the iratus bug," Todd said. Everyone waited for someone to finish the rest of the statement, including Todd.

"So, the question now is 'why?' John summed up. Well, this was certainly helpful. Next he'll just wait for the Todd to inexplicably indicate why there's a hole in the floor and Daniel can show him the basement.

Todd turned away to look at the water, leaning against the railing. The humans could figure out what needed to be solved by themselves for once. Besides, they didn't like him telling him what sort of mess they'd stepped in, no matter how obvious or important it was.

"What would happen if the wraith found earth?" Todd asked, noticing the silence between from the humans had gone on for almost fifteen minutes

"We'd shoot 'em," John answered immediately.

"Comforting," Todd said dryly.

"Will they?" Daniel asked.

"I would not know," Todd said. "It would not be wise if they did."

"Why?" Daniel asked.

"Several billion against a few hundred thousand… I can't say I look forward to experiencing that from anywhere."

"I'll take that as a compliment," John said. He wasn't going to fight a wraith on the ethics of letting people conquer their world.

"I just hope it will be a slaughter and nothing else," Todd said, still staring at the water.

"What else would it be?" John asked. Things go complicated when you had to do more to the enemy than avoid and shoot them.

Todd gave a short hiss and continued to stare at the water.

"What's that mean?" John asked Daniel. "You're the language expert; you know bug."

Daniel sighed. He thought Todd would find this a lot more interesting. And a lot less depressing. He didn't expect to end up translating an argument. He probably should have seen this coming and not hoped the two would argue with each other without him. "It means… well, it means he thinks you're being an ass."

"I saw your bridge from my own galaxy, Sheppard," Todd said.

John took a step backwards unconsciously. It wasn't a god thing when Todd used his name.

"Is there a reason your deign to believe I'm so unintelligent as to believe in your charade that none of this could benefit your planet?" Todd asked, finally spitting out what he'd wanted to say since he'd found he'd never be leaving his prison permanently. It wasn't going to accomplish anything, but he no longer cared if John kept doing it. He tried to never give Atlantis a weapon he didn't want them to use against him. He no longer cared about this one. As pathetic as it may turn out to be, he had a weapon of his own. Daniel would likely never rescue him, but he'd be the voice of guilt humans deserved.

A storm was sitting on the horizon of destiny and it was coming towards them, gaining speed and growing greater. All this time Todd had tried to prevent it, perhaps keep one of the humans from being enveloped in its thick, gray chaos. Now he wondered if he could throw it. If something great and unstoppable were headed towards him, all portents screaming in his ears that he should fear it, why not inflict his destiny on others more deserving? Why not take those fated to fight it to something that could be fought? Why not give them the knowledge of the wreckage of this storm and claim it to be a gift?

Todd turned to look at the two humans. Neither knew what to say or how to form a sentence about what they thought and they didn't' mind making it obvious. There was no more posturing about their perfection, no more faith in that the universe would favor the humans in some way and let them knowhow to make it happen, no more trust in that ethics wouldn't get in the way to finding out interesting things about wraith, no more thinking that the next big disaster would be his fault. The humans looked practically invisible now. There was no chance anything with such expressions could even escape planets, let alone affect the fate of one. Todd wondered what was meant to happen when everything was burned away, when the flames ceased their distillation. Was anything left any more than cracked and broken dust?

There was a soft flash as the mild sun managed to shine briefly off of John's watch and Todd turned away with a smug snort.

"Don't get cocky; we still don't know what to do with you," John said.

"I believe there are still some bugs in knowing how to perfect my usefulness in this mystery," Todd said, enjoying his pun. "The last of which would be how you would get a wraith to willingly tell the truth of what he saw. We may be forever, but we are not as replaceable as your kind."

"I don't think I like where this is going," John said nervously. It was only now that he could feel the inertia of what he'd started. By talking to one wraith—one, single, imprisoned, lost wraith—he'd told it far more about humans than he'd meant to, and in turn he'd learned more about them than he knew. In deciding never to trust him, never to grant it what it had given him the first time they had agreed to be allies, he'd set Atlantis against the powers of the one he'd rescued, the one he had admitted wasn't evil. The more either learned of the other, the faster the two raced towards each other in a fight to destroy the other. There was no stopping it now. There had been years ago, but that chance was gone, snuffed out like a dying star, only now did he know it had happened. Keeping up was like riding on a train, holding on for dear life, but knowing something worse was in store if he let go. He knew, only now, that Todd had meant to take the two great forces of Atlantis and his own resources and intended to combine them: an unstoppable juggernaut that brought an entire galaxy to its knees in one moment with the humans gloating just as much as he would.

"Then change it," Todd said casually, sounding as if John had complained about a TV channel.

"You're back to being as helpful as ever." John said. "I'm going to leave you two lovebirds alone and see if I can find a chew toy. Don't do anything stupid, I'm just going to be in the hall."

"You are still here," Todd noted after the door closed behind John.

"I do that sometimes," Daniel said, leaning on the railing, making sure to keep some distance between them. He wasn't afraid of Todd; he knew Todd wasn't stupid enough to try something as simple as killing or holding him hostage. He also knew Todd loved to play with your head. He was curious to see where thoughts would take someone, figured out motives—though his reasoning tended to have a nihilistic twist to it, did his best to keep secrets to himself when he suspected they could be useful to others, and was never hesitant to laugh in your face. But Daniel had a secret weapon. As long as he remembered he could always walk away and Todd couldn't, there was no true threat. "What are you looking at?

"Your ocean," Todd said. "It is…duller than others I have seen."

"That's because of the pollution. And the fog," Daniel said. ""I didn't really think—I mean... you know. I didn't think this would turn into a threat… at least not so soon."

"I wish I could have been as intrigued by the newness of it as you wished," Todd said. "Did you do this out of your well-meaning 'friendship'?"

"Would it have been cruel if I did?" Daniel asked.

"On the contrary, it would mean you had hoped for a beneficial outcome from your discovery," Todd said. "Was that your intention?"

"Pretty much," Daniel said.

"You cannot prevent anyone form taking advantage of this, can you?"

"No, but that doesn't mean I agree with it," Daniel said. He envied Todd. At least in prison you had an excuse to be powerless.

"Would you stop John from shooting me if you felt it was needed?" Todd asked.

"If I could," Daniel said. "I thought you didn't want me to."

Todd turned to Daniel, a slight smile on his face. "I don't. I just wanted to know if you truly believe in your convictions still. It gives me something to think about."


	9. Nahualli

Daniel was surprised when he was asked to meet Woolsey in his office. He felt as if he were a child sent to the principal's office for something he had no idea he had done. Daniel wasn't used to having to listen to Woolsey. They had always been antagonists to each other and Woolsey was always so easily circumvented. Now Woolsey actually had to be listened to; Daniel hadn't been prepared for it.

Woolsey wasn't angry—not in the slightest—he was disappointed. This time Daniel had stepped over the line with good intentions and ended up an idiot that had endangered them all. He knew it before Woolsey even started talking.

"I know what you're trying to do," Woolsey said. He wasn't even sitting down. He was standing, pacing slightly. Daniel had unwittingly stepped in something personal. "I can understand wanting to, even. Todd isn't human and he isn't going to be; he's using you."

"I'm not trying to adopt a baby raccoon here," Danile complained. "He's sentient—he's sapient—he deserves to be treated like he is."

"I didn't den his intelligence and I'm not going to," Woolsey said. "On the contrary, you shouldn't take it so lightly just because he listens to you. I admit it's been a relief to have someone to keep him distracted and from brooding all the time, but your literally walking right into his hands if you use any authority to keep his cuffs off while he's here on Atlantis—and I don't care where the city is when you do it."

"He wasn't going to do anything," Daniel said. He didn't' think he should be here or having this conversation.

"I really don't want to see how you can prove that," Woolsey said. He had yet to get angry. He never changed throughout the conversation from being almost desperately concerned.

"I meant John was there with me," Daniel said. "He came to keep an eye on Todd."

Woolsey put his hand to his temple. "That's a lot less comforting that you think. You can't have those two near each other with Todd like that. The problem is I know exactly where you were when you should have seen what he was capable of. You were turning on the attero device. You were the reason he attacked an entire ship on a peace mission and tried to kill everyone on board—and that was after trying to ransom the thing off by threatening to kill me. You were off meeting aliens and messing with machinery, and by now I should know that's exactly what you're going to do no matter where you are. If you need something to play with, I'll find something you can break, but just stick with talking to Todd."

….

Todd had his hands on his art book, open to a certain page, but he was intently staring at the walls of the tiny conference room. It was all the same metal, shining even when no one had bothered to turn the lights on for him. Nothing dulled the color; nothing blurred the shine: no fog, no pollution. It was a stagnant, unchanging, unmoving, harsh place. Todd wondered if he'd ever bring pollution to Atlantis. It could use some dullness. Or some fog. He doubted it had ever known such things beyond the vague touch of one or two inhabitants.

It was only after a few minutes of musing that Daniel arrived. "Sorry I was held up when—you don't care, do you?" he asked, stopping in the idle of his gesturing.

"Unless you wish to explain the geography of Atlantis, I would have no idea what you would be talking about," Todd said. "Such things would not interest me and believe your superiors would not take kindly to the notion of you doing so. You have your answers about ascension. It won't change. Why did you offer to meet again?"

"Why not?" Daniel asked, sitting down. "Okay, so Dr, Keller wanted me to ask you some questions, but that doesn't mean I we can't discuss anything else."

"Do you expect any new answers out of me about my condition?" Todd asked.

"Not really," Daniel admitted. "You would have mentioned something important a while ago if you knew anything important."

"No, there is nothing else," Todd said. "Why is it a concern to Atlantis? I thought I was…preferable this way."

"You're technically sick, Todd. That's not a good thing," Daniel said.

"The alternative is what Atlantis has been fighting for five years. They have considered weaponizing their 'cures' before. Why would Atlantis seek my health? Perhaps they wish to know how to end this to induce new visions? They would need repeatable results if they are ever going to make me useful."

Todd liked to bug humanity, which probably deserved it on most occasions. It easily got annoying until one realized Todd wasn't looking to humans for answers. They never had answers—no good ones. He was looking for them to ask the same things he wondered about. They blundered into ways to ruin the lives of others and, just like the ancients and other wraith, fought without ever seeing their enemy's face. They began to live on lies about those whom they fought, and then lies about themselves. No 'fifth race' would settle for such simple bloody actions and such petty intentions amongst themselves.

"I never told them what I found," Daniel said. "I wanted to show you to know what you had to say about it before I showed it to anyone else. I burned the picture by the way."

"That doesn't answer my questions," Todd retorted. "What about Sheppard?"

"He helped me burn it," Daniel said immediately. "As much as it doesn't look like it, Dr. Keller wants to help; I think she feels guilty about what happened to you. Beyond that… I have no idea, but I'd be against leaving you like this."

"What does John think about it?" Todd asked. He kept his book close where Daniel could not see it, but he wasn't fidgeting or moving the pages.

"You certainly are…" Daniel wondered what the best word to use in this situation was.

"I am cautious," Todd said, finished for him. "It is why I am still alive. Atlantis has taught me many lessons in caution; perhaps I did not learn the last one as well as I should have. Unlike you, I cannot afford act on my curiosity before caution."

"I got better," Daniel complained. He wasn't about to argue that John did seem to be the kind of friend to steal your car and set if on fire on occasion. However, he wasn't about to let an alien who had friends like that call him a reckless idiot.

"Is that why you do not fear me?" Todd asked. It was annoying that he was so honest. If he were belittling him, Daniel could easy knock him down. Since it was a real question, it needed a real answer, though.

"You doubt me that much?" Daniel asked. Todd's strategy seemed to be getting more answers out of him than the other way around. Perhaps if he adopted the same strategy, he'd get some answers for himself.

"Because it disturbs humans when morals do not come easily and there is no hope for you to aid me when I am starving for when I usually consume."

"Would it change anything between us for you?" Daniel asked. Daniel didn't know what to think about this new topic. Before it had just been promising not to be mean and tell Todd about things like symbols and colors and name random countries he had no context about. Daniel was told what Todd's species did as their nature, but the guns and guards and cuffs and being locked somewhere had made the thought easier. It wasn't just Todd's need as to be a full wraith, but it was something Daniel felt he had to do—something he felt Todd would hate far more than mere abandonment at the moment.

"No," Todd said. That would be that if Daniel's expression didn't beg him to continue. "There is no sense other than pure memory that tells us humans will satisfy our hunger. You do not smell different, we do not recognize the weak from the rest of your group s many predators do. It rests purely in knowing what the only thing to feed on is, and whether or not one will survive if we try." He ended the last bit with a satisfied smile. He could tell when Atlantis would kill him if he tried to feed on someone. He'd taken the risk of starvation in exchange for their help… and Daniel knew it was all without one of their hollow mentions of thanks. "But what does that matter? What power do you have if I had something you could agree to?"

"It'd depend on what you could be up to," Daniel said. "You're every opportunity I could want—if I could find a way to articulate most of my questions—but I'm not dumb enough to trust you that much."

"I am flattered," Todd said, genuinely enjoying the comment. "The obvious thing to do is have the opportunity outweigh the risk—isn't that why Dr. Keller worked so hard on her 'cure'? I am not even sure if what I have to offer you is anything you would care about, much less take. All I need to know is if you can convince the others to give me what I ask for if it does. I want to be what I am meant to be again; I want to remain where we can discuss what I have to show you; and I want nothing to change between us until you see it for yourself."

"Why would you be offering something like this to me?" Daniel asked. "Be as honest as you'd want me to be with you; don't start acting like John."

"Part of me wishes to offer this in hopes that you will not change the way he did, yet part of me expects that you will and this would create the best situation for when you do," Todd said, turning the book around, still hiding what pages he had it open to. "But mostly it is envy. I was born during the war with the ancients. I spent quite some time building power and learning tactics, as well as much of the asuran programming. I never once learned our history, short of names of those who had died. My kind has no use for those like you, we do not care for the history beyond the war and no one has even seen a reason to find it. I can promise you this now: if you want this, you will need me. I will agree to nearly any 'supervision' Atlantis deems necessary." Todd pushed the book forward. "What can you tell me about this?"


	10. Xolotl

"That's all he said?" Dr. Keller asked. She hadn't made any progress on trying to figure out what would cure Todd. She had to know for certain this time, especially since she knew it really was possible to fix his condition. She swore Todd was being unhelpful on purpose. Otherwise it was her fault she wasn't smart enough to figure this out.

"I don't think he's being clueless on purpose," Daniel said. "He just said he ate a bunch of bugs and got better. I'd panic if I were in his shoes; I don't think I'd be taking notes in case it happened again."

Dr. Keller sighed. So far Todd had eaten a pen; clothes; a blanket; most of the crayons; part of the coloring book; a shoelace; and according to what he'd thrown up recently, a powerbar. "Where'd he even get a powerbar?" she mumbled.

"Uh… I gave him that," Daniel said. "I figured that he could at least try eating real food if he was going to chew on things. Didn't like it, did he?"

"Well, he seems to have digested the protein from it, but that's mostly it," Dr. Keller said. "Just protein and anything that seems close to keratin. I'm surprised he's not chewing on his own nails."

"Keratin?" Daniel asked. Most languages he'd studied hadn't written much on biology and he had no opportunities to study the documents that had mentioned it.

"Stuff that makes up fingernails and hair," Dr. Keller said. "If he had any sort of exoskeleton, this might make sense."

"Why?" Daniel asked. His knowledge of wraith anatomy could be fit on a post-it in big letters.

"Well, wraith are part bug, so—" Dr. Keller stopped immediately, suddenly realizing what she was saying.

"Just to check, that was things getting better, right?" Daniel asked. Everyone was bugging him today, desperate for his help. Sadly, he had to start where he was the least helpful.

"Well, I really don't think it'll hurt him," Dr. Keller said. "The problem is how to get what he needs."

"Well, I don't know anything about this kind of thing, so I should probably get going," Daniel said.

"Actually, you could help with some weird foods; it's a place to start."

…..

"So Todd thinks you're an ass," Rodney said. Why did everyone have to bug him with wraith problems? "Since when did you care what he thought about you, unless it was the equivalent of a hamburger?"

"I dunno," John said. He hated it when people pointed out his answers sucked. "I just did this time. He wasn't doing anything."

"He's always doing something," Rodney said causally. "He's Todd, he can't not do something. He already got himself a room."

"Not much of a scheme just to be locked up somewhere bigger and with a shower," John commented.

"He'll think of something," Rodney said. "I'm pretty sure whatever scheme it is won't be because he thinks you're a jerk."

"You're a lot of help," John said sarcastically.

"So I'm the expert on wraith relationships now?" Rodney complained.

"Well, you know more about how to talk to them than Teyla or Ronon," John said.

"I don't think there's enough difference between panicking and having someone else shoot them and just shooting them," Rodney said.

"You've done other stuff," John said.

"And then someone shot them," Rodney said. "Or blew them up. I know he's amazingly annoying, but ask Daniel. The only other person who's ever been nice to a wraith gave Todd cancer… which ended up with shooting and blowing them up, so it's not much difference technically."

"You need to stop teaching your girlfriend things like that," John said as he left.

…

"Yes, Todd is being weird," Daniel said, not looking up from his book. "I can handle it John."

"How did—" John started.

"You're the only person who'd interrupt me," Daniel said.

"Okay, now you're just being creepy," John said.

"No, I'd say what he's asking for is creepy," Daniel said, slamming his book closed. "That and how well he knows me already."

"So what'd you tell him?" John said. For being ten thousand years old, Todd had yet to learn how to make friends.

"I told him I'd ask you," Daniel said, getting up and looking through his books.

Great. Why was all of this about him and not Todd? "What's he want?"

"Well, he doesn't want to be sick anymore," Daniel said. "Then he wants us to go poking at something in the Pegasus Galaxy. Sounds like a usual request from someone in his position. "The weird thing is what he described isn't in any of the Ancient records."

"If he's lying, just ignore him; he can't do anything," John said.

"I don't think he is," Daniel said. "The dates match up with the Ancients leaving and the culture he spoke of showing up on Earth. It would explain why the culture's development seemed almost spontaneous."

"He probably just read it somewhere," John said. "I really doubt he doesn't know English."

"If he could read, he'd have learned for the coloring book what a clown was and you'd never heard the end of it," Daniel said.

"That actually sounds a lot creepier than what you're talking about so far," John said.

"I never told him the dates of any of the Nahua civilizations—just that they were wiped out on Earth. One of those cultures had one of the most dangerous pieces of Ancient technology we've ever found, and yet what Todd mentions is a lot more like them than anything I've seen in SG-1."

"Are you sure?" John asked. "I mean you guys found everything; the best we found was some sort of T-rex."

"Cipactli," Daniel said.

"Gesundheit," John replied.

"No, I'm saying there was a monster that became the earth in Nahua legend and that it probably came from a monster like that," Daniel explained. "Todd mentioned it as the name of a planet and pronounced it perfectly; he wants to go there. He said there were wraith as well as human on the planet."

"Okay, it's starting to get kind of creepy," John admitted.

"Not even close," Daniel said. "He said the humans call the wraith there _Teotl_, but they call them selves _Titlacauan_. The first is… it's not really a God, but it's an aspect of nature that needs to be fed or placated. The other means 'We are slaves.'"

"Yeah, I'd say it's pretty creepy anyone wants to go there," John said. "What'd you tell him?"

"I told him I'd have to ask you," Daniel said. "Sorry about all that, what did you want?"


	11. Flight

Todd was silent, not refusing to speak, but seeing no reason to say or do anything. He was outside again, no cuffs, only this time it was just him and John and less of a clue what he was doing here. John had at least attempted some sort of comfort for Todd by giving him something to tie his hair back, unaware that the harsh wind would torment even a wraith's ears and eyes.

"Well?" John asked casually, leaning against the railing.

"I have done nothing with your bridge," Todd said. "It is still unattractive."

"We're not here to talk about the bridge, Todd," John said. Things were already not going the way he wanted. Daniel wasn't here and Todd was in the midst of not blacking out or being distracted by needing to chew on things. If things weren't going right, it was because of one of them, and it couldn't be him.

Without looking around, Todd knew he couldn't open the door and ask to leave. It was just him and John. That could only mean one thing, especially since he had asked Daniel to take him somewhere that was obviously dangerous. He stood where he was, letting the empty, shrieking wind speak for him.

John sighed. "Say something," John said, angrily. It was hard to prove you weren't a jerk deep down when the person you were trying to prove it to acted like furniture.

"Why am I here?" Todd asked. What he was really asking was why John wasn't doing anything.

"I wanted to talk in private," John said. "No cameras, no cuffs, and no books with pictures."

"Why?' Todd asked.

"I just thought you'd appreciate it," John said. "Y'now, having a bit of freedom outside."

"This is not freedom," Todd said. He didn't bother to look at the landscape or the door or even John. He didn't move at all.

"What do you want now?" John complained. "There's nothing here but us."

"And?" Todd asked. He still didn't know why he was here or why John was just leaning against the railing being difficult. He could at least be difficult inside and let Todd ignore him while he did so.

"And I thought you might want to talk about something," John said.

"No," Todd said, hoping he could leave.

"Why not?" John asked.

"There is nothing I could say that would make you do anything new."

"I think whatever you ate is messing with your head," John said. "You sound like a bad fortune cookie. If this is about saying I'd shoot you, I'm not going to."

"You will," Todd said calmly. He wasn't mocking him, merely correcting his wording politely.

"What'd you do?" John asked, suddenly tired of all of this.

"You know everything that I have done or said… unless Daniel did not tell you," Todd said, too blandly to qualify as 'innocently.'

John decided to assume Daniel hadn't forgotten some disaster caused by a wraith. There was rule-breaking, and then there was having a deathwish. This only lead to a conclusion John didn't like: Todd wanted to go to a planet full of people derived from blood worshippers and slaveholder so much that he didn't think John might shoot him, but would shoot him. If Todd was as familiar with these people, it would certainly explain his casually morbid view of two galaxies. "You don't want to talk about that?"

"I am not going to convince you not to shoot me. I am neither going to convince you to let me leave." There was something in Todd's uncaring tone that John was shocked to suddenly discover had always been there in everything he had said in this pointless discussion. He respected John, too much to keep John from ultimately killing him.

"So you still think I'm-?"

"Yes."

"It was worth a try," John said. "Let's get back inside."

"That would be…appreciable," Todd said.

John shrugged. It was a start.

….

"How's Todd?" Woolsey asked.

"Haven't seen him and I don't want to," Rodney said. He had hoped he wouldn't be called to another meeting for months. Stupid wraith.

"Except for asking if we're leaving, he's giving the silent treatment," John said. He thought he was done with Todd. Stupid wraith.

"Is there any chance he's telling the truth about this culture?" Woolsey asked. Every single time before this one Todd had tried to convince Atlantis to release him back into the Pegasus Galaxy; theft and deception weren't below him when he thought it could help him. Now he wasn't doing any of that, finding the most inconvenient time to surrender and intentionally making things hell for everyone else he knew so long as he had to suffer. Stupid wraith.

"I think so," Daniel answered. "Dates match up; he can pronounce things perfectly when he has trouble with my name-I never mentioned any of this and he can't read the book I gave him." Of all the things to think of when one is sick and to locked away indefinitely in prison. Wraith were weird.

"Then I want you to get rid of him," Woolsey said coldly. He continued, too stern to let anyone interrupt him. "We have a sentient being we know how to exploit repeatedly for our own gain. We are too far hidden for any laws to stop it, and enough force to make him comply. I don't want him even in this solar system by the time the IOA decides this is a good idea and I've been their messenger of bad ideas enough to know they will love this. Get rid of him and give me a reason to let you."

"Weapons," Daniel said. "Anything we've found that actually has a history with this culture and the ancients has been deadly." He didn't feel the need to add how dangerous getting the last one had been.

"The IOA's not going to buy that we need to go to another planet to get another zombie maker," Rodney said. "And they aren't going to send it to get it, either."

"We're not going to steal weapons," Daniel said. "Todd doesn't want to go near them without our help. If they don't have anything from the ancients, they've got their own. Negotiating a contract for trade would be easier."

"Let's just hope they like jeans and coca-cola," John said.

"Why would we take Todd?" Rodney asked.

"He said it was important that we go with him," Daniel said. "I think we should trust him, given the problems white men have already had introducing themselves to Nahuatl cultures."

"If you don't know what he's talking about, you can ask to borrow Todd's book," Woolsey said, wondering why he was the only one who knew what Daniel was talking about.

"Not that I like him, but what are we going to do with him?" Rodney asked.

Daniel shrugged. "We won't know what to do until we get there."

"Great plan," Rodney said sarcastically. "Why am I here?"

"Because I want you to make this possible and to go with them," Woolsey said. He wasn't in the mood for Rodney to come up with excuses not to go.

"Why?" Rodney asked.

"Because no matter how much you annoy him, Todd won't kill you and you'll tell everything he does to the others," Woolsey said.

"I'm flattered," Rodney replied caustically. Stupid wraith.

…

"Grab your—whoah!" John yelled, entering Todd's room.

Todd walked out of the bathroom as John started talking, curious as to what couldn't wait and why he was here at all. He was wringing water out of his hair and clad only in a pair of jeans with a giant rip on the knee and two broken belt loops.

"Put a shirt on!" John complained

"Is that all?" Todd asked, heading over to the makeshift dresser. He didn't need humans to remind him to get dressed.

"Stop laugh—" John yelled at the security camera, only to be interrupted by Todd shaking the remaining water from his hair.

John turned to yell at Todd for smirking, but instead Todd was engrossed in pulling on a shirt that said 'Live Long and Prosper.' Someone had a very wrong sense of humor today. "Get ready; we're going in fifteen minutes."

Todd looked at John the way John looked at him the way he was sure Todd was hiding something. "You are not supposed to go there."

"Tough. And I don't care if I'm being a jerk, someone needs to watch you and Daniel's going to be distracted."

"I would not harm him," Todd said, disliking the accusation that he would.

"That's not what I'm worried about," John said. "Someone'll get you in a few minutes; I gotta get to the jumper before Rodney tries flying it."

The door opened and John left, though not in a hurry.

Todd grabbed his book before remembering his shoes.


	12. Kali

Only Todd had a sense of foreboding about the mission. Daniel was too busy enjoying the potential for learning and exploration. Rodney was too busy complaining about everything. John and Woolsey were too busy trying to get Teyla to leave.

"This isn't your mission," Woolsey said, looking at Todd and wondering how the wraith had concocted this particular surprise. If Todd wasn't responsible, then the universe had just decided to hate him today.

"It's my galaxy," Teyla said. "I should meet these people. I should come to help protect John."

"That would be inadvisable," Todd said, speaking up. "It is not your planet and it is not your people, or your history. Would you allow a wraith the same luxury you have, knowing the secrets of your own people that was hidden from you?"

Teyla refused to let the wraith have the advantage of heavy, pregnant pauses. She wasn't going to let his words linger in the air, soak into the station; she would never allow his words to make the others start to think about them. "Wraith are evil."

"Which is why you should stay," Todd said.

"Great speech, get in the car before I decide this is the worst idea I've ever had," John said. The last thing he wanted before leaving was more talking.

"This is the worst idea you've ever had," Rodney said before turning to Todd. "And it's not your planet when the address doesn't work. What the heck did you do?"

"I think he was a bit busy with not dying," John said. He wondered why he hadn't yet even gotten everyone in the jumper. Daniel was standing around, waiting for Todd. Todd was waiting to be told what to do; Daniel was waiting for Todd, and John was both waiting for them and trying to avoid Rodney's loud complaining.

Todd gave John his best attempt at a shrug; he was still very awkward at human body language and as much as he'd had to deal with humans' need to talk for so long, he still preferred to be concise.

"Have you calculated-?" John tried suggesting to Rodney, only to be interrupted.

"Yes, I calculated for the planet moving. I took into account we're on earth and in a different galaxy. I checked every possible reason the gate's not working and the only one left is that he messed with it when he was on the planet.

"Why would he mess with the gate and then ask to use it?" John asked. No matter how odd Todd was for either species, it was still too unwraithlike. Gates were too important for wraith to go around breaking them. Time and again wraith fell victim too easily to never destroying or blocking a gate and only guarding it from a single direction.

"I don't know!" Rodney complained. "I don't want to know. Every time someone asks him a question, things just get worse. Why can't I just choose a gate address that's close and we just tell him to go through and stay there?"

"Because we're trying to lose him, not our jobs," John said. He was also trying not to lose his temper, his patience, and his sanity. "Why not try and get us to a nearby gate?"

"Unless things have changed, they're in wraith space—just like the original address."

"Sounds like a convenient way to lose someone," Daniel mumbled. "We can focus on not dying instead of watching where he went."

"Says the man who keeps coming back from the dead," Rodney scoffed. "I don't want to try it, just in case it doesn't work."

"You do have the highest mortality and survival rate, Daniel," John said, watching Todd. It would be just like if to wander off while they were distracted about saying he wandered off while they were distracted.

The wraith was staring down one of the corridors, seemingly ignorant to he conversation between the Tau'ri next to him. Woolsey and Teyla were gone, probably the reasons Todd wasn't paying attention.

John hoped Todd was just being weird. If not, this was the first time he wanted the wraith to start keeping secrets. Todd was polite enough to keep out of the heads of those on Atlantis, but Teyla did what she wanted when it came to going into the heads of wraith. There were other—rather surprising—ways to get under his skin as well. Whatever Teyla had done could just as easily have been retaliation as it could have been abrupt. Whatever the reason, whoever had started it, whenever it had happened, what information either of them know at the time, what wounds either of them had taken… those were mysteries John wanted to be very, very far away from.


	13. Scorched Earth

John had sent everyone to the back. After all the trouble it took to leave, he didn't even want Rodney in the front, given how many things the engineer obviously had to complain about. As expected, an argument started immediately, though thankfully it was about the nuances of Star Trek and Todd was kept out of it for the most part. At least everyone was preoccupied curing the boring travel through space and entering the atmosphere.

That, it turned out, was the easy part.

"Todd, what did you do?" he asked, interrupting the argument. "Get your green butt over here and explain something."

Todd was the first to enter the cockpit to examine the reason for Sheppard's annoyance; the two humans silently followed behind the wraith, almost as surprised as he was when they saw it.

There had been trees here before, a lush and chaotic temperate forest. What lay before them, stretching out to the horizon, was nothing but barren, burnt earth; covered in a thick layer of still ash. The air was still. The earth was stagnant. Nothing existed between the two, not even wind.

"This is their work," Todd said flatly.

"I guess we're in the right place at least," John said, opening the back of the jumper. "Anythign specific we're supposed to look for?"

Todd either ignored him of felt the question was rhetorical. The Wraith silently wandered off, his direction seemingly aimless, away from the jumper.

Daniel shrugged. He could talk to a Wraith, explain things to a Wraith, but he never gave any indication he could make Todd makes sense.

"He's gone; are we done?" Rodney asked, impatiently. One of the good things about being on earth was the lack of potentially fatal disasters. He doubted the Pegasus galaxy had changed much in that aspect.

John just put his hand to his forehead. He wondered if Rodney was right, that they should just leave now.

…..

Eventually Daniel wandered after Todd. An hour later, Rodney got bored and wandered off, quietly grumbling. John sighed and finally followed the three sets of footsteps as the sun was setting.

It was an hour before he caught up with the others. Daniel was examining something that even from a distance John knew wasn't healthy to go poking at while Rodney watched and Todd…stood there.

Even the air was burned, thick, stifling, unmoving…dead. It weighed heavily in the lungs and the heat felt almost solid, a constant wall to fight against while walking. Worst, it smelled. It wasn't a pleasant char of wood a kin to that of a fireplace, but it had harshness to it, almost an angry scent.

Things made just as much sense as they did from a distance. Daniel was busy, Rodney was complaining and from his expression, he was sure they were all going to die. Todd wasn't even paying attention, let alone watching them; he'd probably have wandered off further if he thought he could get away with it.

"What's a scarecrow doing out here?" he asked. He had no idea what else the thing Daniel was poking at could be.

"It's not a scarecrow," Daniel said, still scrambling at the dirt. "Not sure what is it is, exactly."

"Don't poke at it, you'll get tetanus or soemthing," Rodney said, sounding as if he was going to be sick.

"Is it what I think it is?" John asked. He hadn't paid any attention to the details of the thing until now, and he was currently regretting it.

"If it's scarier than a clown, yes," Rodney said, affirming John's disgust.

It was a cross, slightly shorter than John himself. The wood was expertly sanded and neatly cut, the rope that tied it together was sleek and white. A large piece of sun-dried green leather was draped over the cross and tied to the ends. Long white wisps of white hair fluttered in a slight wind from the top of the skin and polished claws glinted in the sunlight as they dangled from the tips of the cross. Someone had skinned a wraith.

There were brightly colored ribbons and decorations adorning it everywhere. A necklace of dark, pointed teeth hung over the crossbar. Feathers had been sewn into the skin and beads dangled everywhere, glinting in the orange light. This… this gruesome thing was someone's shrine. This was some grand, holy. Everything on it had to have been carried here, gently cared for.

John backed away a step, realizing it wasn't just the decorations that had been brought here with delicacy and reverence. He brain asked the worst question it ever could: where was the rest of it?

"This isn't what we're looking for, right?" John asked. He felt almost as sick as Rodney.

"This was," Rodney said, waving a broken datapad at John absentmindedly. It looked Lantean, only cruder and simpler. "I'm not sure what he's doing."

"What's Todd have to say about the uh…"John nodded at the 'scarecrow.'

"Absolutely nothing," Rodney said, shrugging. "Helpful as always. We should have named him 'Mr. Scribbles'. That was my friend's old hamster; thing tried to fly, had a taste for people, and chewed through his little wheel twice."

Todd didn't seem to notice Rodney's comment. The wind returning and gently tossing his hair was to only thing that seemed to be a conscious act by the wraith.

"Stop giving Todd weird ideas, he has enough of them," John said, finally seeing what Todd was staring at. The light had changed from bright orange to a soft purple. Miles away, the hole made by the hive of the keepers was now defined by distant flickering lights. There were campfires near the horizon dotting a crater. They had wandered miles to put a dead wraith in a stick and cover it with gaudy colors, treated it like something holy, and then left. They were practically lying in wait.

Given that behavior and what little John had heard of these people, they were practically lying in wait from Todd's point of view. No wonder they'd captured his attention and yet he'd stayed close to the others.

"Did that hamster ever dig up anything weird?" Daniel asked, leaning back from his digging and wiping dirt across his forehead.

John leaned over to get a better view of what Daniel had dug up, thinking it was better than contemplating the silent Wraith. He immediately decided he was wrong.

"The other hamster he killed," Rodney said before he took a look for himself. "Eww! He is Mr. Scribbles! I thought he just dug this up," he said, looking at the datapad. "Ugh."

A corner or the datapad had been burnt from the recent conflagration. That was how Todd had managed to find it amongst a seemingly unending landscape of nothing. Uneasily, he turned the pad over in his hands. Strange white fragments were embedded on the back of the datapad. Looking down at the skeleton, he first noticed the back of the skull had been broken by a blunt object. Biology was hardly his forte, but even to him it was obvious that the head had taken several blows. He wasn't sure if he should feel better or worse when he noticed the skeleton's pointed teeth.

"You pull dead monster out of this thing!" Rodney complained, opting for denial and shoving the device into John's hands.

"It's still not as scary as clowns," John said. "I mean…yuck."


	14. Cualli

John insisted that it didn't matter who could see in the dark, everyone, alien or not, was to get back to the jumper for the night. The dead people were not going to get up and leave before morning. What he didn't say was that he trusted Todd in the jumper with them while everyone slept. Whether this was because he didn't' think Todd was dumb enough to kill them and essentially lock himself in an airtight container her couldn't open the doors to or if John cared about the wraith he also kept secret.

John blinked awake and yawned, realizing the noise nearby wasn't from his dream. "Hey!"

Todd was standing next to him, staring out the window and blocking his view of the scource of the noise outside.

"What's—" Rodney asked as he woke up and Daniel came into the cabin.

"Shh!" John said, shoving Todd back in order to see.

Outside was a wraith. He was scantily dressed in a colorful loincloth; he even had a brightly colored ribbon in its hair. He was heavily decorated with woven and beaded jewelry and lacked any true Wraith decoration. His skin was bare of tattoos and his hair fell over his face and covered one eye… presumably. The head of a large nail that had been jammed upwards poked out between the ragged locks. Four more nails jutted from the front of his skull, two beyond the hairline and two along his forehead.

The wraith raised a blade, bolted to his wrist, and brought it down as hard as he could against the ship, the strike knocking him back a pace. He stepped forward and swung his other arm striking the ship with a large spike attached to a chain that was connected to a contraption that held his wrist still, preventing him from feeding. He repeated the motions over and over, almost mechanically.

"Can he see us?" Rodney whispered.

"He can't hear us, either," John said. "We're cloaked. He must've wandered into us."

No one moved as they watched the wraith continue to fight his invisible foe. No one knew what to say. Soon everyone had ceased blinking, mesmerized by the gruesome ebb and flow of the wraith's motions until he was interrupted.

A woman, almost as scantily clad and just as colorfully as the wraith, ran up to it as she hurled a sizable rock in his direction. The wraith turned, earning itself a rock in the face as she scolded him until she saw the rock bounce off the ship.

"Looks like we've got company," John said, as the woman threw another rock at the ship to make sure something was there. "They're gonna keep that up until they break the jumper."

"I hate this planet." Rodney said.

"Stay here," he told Todd as he uncloaked the jumper. "Rodney, I need you in case we need another gun; Daniel, I need you so we don't." He signaled to Rodney to open the hatch and strode out with a tight grip on his weapon.

The woman had been joined by three other humans, all male, armed with what looked to be nail guns turned into offensive weaponry. The wraith stood by her like a loyal dog, showing no emotion as it watched the new comers.

The strange people were simply and barely dressed, though there was evidence that, like their weapons, they were not primitive. Unlike the usual pale natives of other planets, their skin was dark and ruddy. Their hair was sleek and black, coarser than those usually found on the other end of the Pegasus Galaxy. This was not altogether unnerving, as many races had already been found; likely these were distant kin of Ronan or Teyla.

Before John could even crack a smile, the weapons were aimed at him and his cohorts.

"Waste not to reward the thing," the woman said, violently shoving the wraith.

They suddenly went quiet and the three Tau'ri turned to see Todd stepping out of the jumper behind them. The woman's harsh glare suddenly melted away and she began to laugh heartily as the men lowered their weapons. Although the wraith's expression didn't change, it seemed disappointed.

"I thought I told you to stay in there," John scolded.

Todd turned to Daniel for a second before heading back into the jumper.

Rodney, even thought he'd been distracted by the lack of covering on her chest, was the first and pick up on her change in attitude. "Uh… bad wraith! Bad! Shoo! You're on time-out!"

The woman shooed the men and the wraith away. "We had no idea there were others who had crossed Tlillan-Tlapallan," she said. "We were afraid huitznanuna had come from Coyolxauhqi, tricking us into destroying a false cenote.

"We are from Yacatecuhtli," Daniel said, hoping he understood enough. "From the other side of Tlillan-Tlapallan."

"I can definitely see that," she said, her voice both friendly and in awe. "Your teotl is quite submissive; such power has never been recorded on The World of The Fifth Sun. No one has ever had such favors of Tezcatlipoca."

By now Rodney and John had no idea what was going on or even if the woman was speaking a language they could.

"Has the toeotl ever disobeyed?"

That they understood, wishing she'd go back to talking about unpronounceable gibberish.

"He… doesn't get a cookie," Rodney said, hoping it was answer enough. The rest he could do was hope John didn't mention how free-willed Todd actually was trying to get into the woman's lack of pants.

"You have never been to Tlalocan before, have you?" she asked.

"Uh, no…" Daniel said. "Really bad storms stopped us until now."

"Really, really bad," John said, wishing he could actually join the conversation. 'For a guy who was constantly threatened by interstellar women, he sure was hogging this one,' John though.

"My name is Cualli,; I oversee the settlement of the paradise of the teotl," she said, taking both of Daniel's hands. "Let me be the first of the The People of Aztlan to welcome you to the purified land of Tlalocan. "

"How much of Tlalocan have you claimed?" Daniel asked. The last thing they needed was 'your spaceship is one my lawn.'

"You aren't here to settle, are you?' she said cheekily, crossing her arms and proud of her deduction.

"We merely came to explore," Daniel said cautiously.

"You are sure?" Cualli asked, suddenly suspicious. "We also value knowledge and our people never forgot about the last time those from the Land of the Fleshless came from Thirteenth Heaven."

"I'm hoping not to do any of that, either," Rodney said. He wondered if he had a sign saying 'kick me' that only people from other galaxies could see.

"You help make sure we don't…do that?" John asked. Now he was getting somewhere.

"You are smart," She said, her mood returning to friendly as she chuckled. "I wil have you watched. If you show me you mean no harm, I could even take you to Aztlan; we are always seeking the wisdom of the stars."

"Sounds like a date," John said. Finally. Besides, a lady who could pronounce words like that had to have a skilled tongue.

Daniel put his face in his hand and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed, and immediately turned away to give a harsh whistle. "We are laying the foundations for our new city there," she said, pointing to the blank horizon. "If it returns and the city is unharmed, then I will gladly take you to our home."

"John, what'd you do?" Rodney asked, wincing.

Cualli's wraith made it's way towards the jumper as she turned to them. "I am in charge of overseeing the new city; I should return to my work." She began to walk away as her wraith approached them. "It may need more primitive discipline that you're used to."

"Can you give us a minute?" Daniel asked the wraith, unsure as to whether it understood anything short of rocks at all.


	15. Destiny

Todd was sitting in the back, staring at nothing, completely expressionless and unmoving. His lack of reaction made the air in the ship as stifling and suffocating as it was outside.

Daniel sighed and winced at having nothing to say. John crossed his arms and glared at Todd, sternly believing that all this was somehow the wraith's fault.

Rodney couldn't look at him as he sat down in the co-pilot's seat and covered his face with his hands. "Thanks John, now we've got a Hellraiser version of Solomon Grundy following us."

"I didn't know what her job was," John said. He was more concerned about Todd. The Wraith had a history of complaining when he thought humans just wanted his species to suffer for the hell of it. "Do something!" He yelled at the wraith.

"Do what?" Todd asked, not turning to him.

"Say something!" John yelled. "There's…!" The only words John had for what he'd seen so far was very colorful profanity. As frustrated as he was, he could keep himself from having to explain swear words to an alien. "How about why you didn't tell us about some of that stuff."

"Because we wouldn't be convincing otherwise," Daniel said, leaning back in his seat. "They're already suspicious of us. If we came across as knowing everything, they'd have killed us and taken Todd."

"I hate when your plans go right, you know that?" Rodney complained, taking his hands away from his face to point at Todd.

"Would you rather his plan failed?" Daniel muttered.

"Right, I'm stuck with both of you," Rodney muttered, putting his hands back.

"So what now?" John asked. "Can't go back now." Not unless Daniel had a really good way of saying 'sorry for wasting your time. We forgot how to count above three'. Not that John wanted to ditch Todd just yet.

"We go looking for something else," Daniel said, acknowledging how vague that sounded.

"Very specific," Rodney said. "What about the datapad?"

"I have not seen it before today," Todd said calmly.

"Great, we wasted an entire day digging around in dead things for nothing," Rodney said, showing he liked this plan less and less by the minute.

"Actually, I think finding that maybe have been helpful," Daniel said.

"Do you know how creepy that sounds?" John interrupted. He'd had enough of Rodney before they got there.

"If we're not looking for the dead people, what are we looking for?" Rodney asked. It was still creepy.

"Something I wish to see for myself," Todd said, finally turning to John. His expression said that just because he might fare better than the wraith outside, he wasn't going to change his mind. "Now I know where it is," he said, turning to Daniel.

"Oh, now you know," Rodney complained.

"Is it dead too?" John asked. "Don't answer that, I don't even like what we found alive."

"Do you know what direction to look in this time?" Daniel asked.

"Someone else does," Todd said.

There was a slight pause as Daniel watched the other humans finally realized Todd had been communicating with the other wraith, something he'd figured out fifteen minutes ago.

"Annoyance must be a genetic thing," Rodney said flatly. "We're not leaving until we find the whatchamajig, are we?"

Leaving looked really good at the moment.

….

There was no going back and not even Rodney wanted to leave Todd on the planet. None of that, however, made it any more comfortable watching the one-eyed wraith stand at attention, waiting for orders none of them wanted to give.

"Make it do something," Rodney told Daniel.

"I don't even know where we're going," Daniel said. "Todd does."

"He does no listen to wraith," Todd explained.

"Nothing's ever easy on this planet, is it?" John complained before doing his best to tell the wraith what to do. "Look, go… go find whatever it is he wants," John said, pointing at Todd.

The wraith spent a second to contemplate John, before turning and wandering off, his weapons dragging on the ground.

Todd followed without hesitation. Even Daniel stayed behind for a moment before walking after the two.

Whatever it was, it was further away than the bodies. At first, it was nothing more than a large hole, not very deep and slanted slightly. It was only noticeable right next to it and barely noticeable at that. Still, the two Wraith stopped in front on it and not out of boredom or exhaustion.

The Wraith Rodney has nicknamed 'Grundy' pulled his better arm back and slammed the spiked ball against the hole, sending up a cloud of dirt and ash. The humans backed away, trying to wave the debris from their noses. Meanwhile Todd either wasn't bothered or refused to let he humans believe he was as he began to pull chunks of rubble from the hole.

Before Rodney could complain again, there was strange sound, almost that of a rock or thick clump of dirt smashing against something tougher and breaking apart, but slightly metallic. Todd crawled into the hole, disappearing from view and abandoning the humans with Grundy, who ignored them entirely.

Daniel, again, was the first to investigate. The others remained where they were, not wanting to go near Grundy as they listened to Daniels' footsteps face from crunching dirt to boot soles on ancient stone. "Huh." They heard him say. It may have been short and delivered as flat as his voice could get, but they both knew it was short for 'Cool. I wonder what I can break with this.'


	16. Before the Sun

Rodney came to make sure Daniel didn't cause trouble with a possible new toy—he already had two wraith he was likely to cause a disaster with—and John followed to make sure Rodney or Todd didn't cause any trouble. Blowing up most of a solar system and being blamed for nearly wiping out other solar systems were hard things to forget.

What they found wasn't easy to forget either. It was a vast, underground room. It had once been a facility for study, according to the broken and toppled consoles and datapads on the floor. There were rooms, small ones, lining three out of four of the walls. Whatever doors there had been were long destroyed, mixed with other rubble strew about the floor. The unmoving wreckage was barely illuminated by a small hole in the ceiling, one which, john noted, was just small enough to get one's foot caught in.

It would have all been forgotten and ignored had Rodney nod taken one last step and screamed as he realized it was a skull that had collapsed under his boot. That was when everyone realized many of the strange gray pieces of rubble were bodies, long ago preserved when the room was sealed from the world. Rodney went silent as he realized he'd barely missed crushing a hand that had wrapped tightly around the body's throat… a hand that had bee ripped from its owner's arm.

"Todd, quit finding gross stuff," John said, looking about the room and noticing the rest of the bodies had been in similar fights.

Todd was too busy staring at the bodies in silence. He had wiped some of the dust from the matted hair and learned that the stronger of the dead had black, red, and predominantly white hair while the others only held shades of brown.

"Todd, what do you think this is?" Daniel called out from one of the small rooms. Todd followed out of interest, followed by John and Rodney, who followed out of fear Daniel had found a way to make things even worse.

There were scribbles all over the wall, crude and some stained with blood. The letters in the short blurbs were at first written in ancient, the letters slowly being mangled over time as more recent writings were written lower down or over the old words, changing into a familiar alphabet that was only native to the Pegasus Galaxy.

Strangely, the writing wasn't what Daniel was looking at. He pointed at a large burned portion of the wall. Beneath the char, there were carved concentric circles and lines, as if someone had crudely drawn a collapsing star. No words accompanied the strange symbol, just a vague smear of a hand pressed against the wall and ripped away from time too far to fathom.

"Ever seen anything like this?" Daniel asked.

"What is it?" Todd asked.

"It's some sort of symbol or art."

"Wraith have never used such things," Todd said. "I do not know what it could mean."

"Any explanation as to why?"

"I have never heard of one."

For once, Daniel decided to keep his mouth shut about a discovery.

…..

There was no place to sit but the cells full of morbid alien scrawls or in the middle of the bodies, save for the stairs, which John and Rodney were silently thankful for. They were also relieved Grundy was waiting outside.

They both often contemplated going back outside, though they kept that to themselves as well. The air was as still and dead as the bodies. There was barely anything to take their minds off of either; Daniel spent most of his time taking notes as Todd watched. The only change in the monotony was when Daniel came to a block in his note-taking, examined something or moved to somewhere else and went back to his records.

Eventually, John wet back to the ship to retrieve food for the humans. Todd didn't seem to notice.

"So, are you two still…'talking'?" Rodney asked Todd, noticing he hadn't heard any noise from the other wraith after John left.

"I do not fully understand what happened here," Todd said. "I doubt he would help.

"That's a 'no' then?" Rodney asked.

"Not yet," Todd corrected.

"So what happened?" Rodney asked. If he was going to an autopsy, he wanted to know the results in as few gruesome details as possible. Daniel might call it something else, but they were poking at dead bodies and that was close enough.

"I'd know a lot more if the consoles worked," Daniel said, walking over to them. "The control crystals are gone, except these." He held up two pieces of a single, dirty crystal. Most of the rest of the crystal was missing. "Which is weird, given how well the bodies are preserved."

"Whenever you say something's weird, someone tries to kill me," Rodney said.

"I don't think they're zombies," Daniel assured him.

"Weird?" Todd asked, his curiosity making Rodney even more uncomfortable.

"If the crystals are missing, but everything's preserved like this, we should be able to find them," Daniel said. Nothing was really disturbed, except in the fight. No one stole them after that."

"Someone did this on purpose?" Rodney asked. "Why?"

"From the looks of it, this was a prison," Daniel said.

"Yeah, but there were wraith here—no offense to present company," Rodney said, suddenly correcting himself.

"I don't think they were," Daniel said. "Skin's not the right color. Bone density is wrong. Hands… look wrong."

"They did not kill their captors the way a wraith would," Todd added.

Daniel took a note of that.

"If they weren't wraith, what were they?" Rodney asked, not sure of he should feel better.

Daniel shrugged as they heard footsteps approaching.

"What'd I miss?" John asked, sitting down and handing rodney a packet of food.

"My hypoglycemia," was all Rodney said.


	17. Mine

Grundy had waited patiently as the four had 'poked at gross things' as Rodney put it. It was well into the night when they left the hole; John had retrieved flashlights, not wanting to have to come back the next day incase it pissed off Grundy's owners.

"Are you sure about this, Todd?" Daniel asked, as he and the wraith brought up the rear as the group left the hole.

"I know of no other way to discover the history of my kind." Todd replied, leading the way due to his night vision.

"I'm pretty sure it's just a long time of killing humans," Rodney muttered. "I doubt you ever did that in an interesting way." He stopped talking as Grundy stared at him. He suddenly wondered if they're escort had grown and interest as well. "What exactly are we going to do with you? We can't ditch you here and I doubt leaving you where we're going would be an improvement."

He heard a low growl behind him. "I hope that was my stomach."

"We'll keep an eye on Todd," John said to Grundy. Getting into a fight with something that probably didn't have all of its mental faculties and had medieval weaponry grafted on was not something you ignored when it was displeased.

"You mean I'll end up keeping an eye on Todd," Rodney complained. "I know what you'll be keeping an eye on."

"I'm going to try and keep our history geek from dying. I don't' want to hang around this galaxy until he comes back."

"You're not going to save anyone trying to sleep with the leader of the psychotic crackpots."

"She's not nuts," John protested.

Grundy scraped his blade in rebuttal.

"They're always nuts," Rodney said. "I'll give you fifty buck if the woman who throws rocks and nails at wraith isn't the crazy one."

"Be ready to pay me when we get back."

Grundy looked at Todd, who silently assured him that this was indeed what these people were like most of the time.

…..

Cualli was and waiting with Grundy, who had guarded the jumper all night, for them before anyone else had woken up save for Todd, whom John suspected hadn't sleep just to be creepy. Even Daniel felt it was best for Todd to stay inside.

"My ship is ready to take you," she said. "Is your teotl coming?"

"He's…my…assistant," Daniel bluffed. He hoped wherever he was staying didn't have a 'no teotl' in the house'. "I prefer to keep him close by." He hoped what he said hadn't sounded creepy or irresponsible.

"Your ship?" John asked after yawning. She could barely dress herself—not that he was complaining-and no one carried around anything digital, let alone more complicated than a pneumatic machine. He feared her 'ship' was made of wood and cloth. "We'd rather not leave ours here."

"I'd be returning here every few days," Cualli said politely, not understanding the problem. "I oversee this project. I can make sure no one touches your ship."

"It's a collectable," Rodney tried. It didn't work.

"We need to get back soon," John said. "They're waiting for us back home and we don't like to worry them."

"Where exactly are you from?" Cualli asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Earth," Daniel said, shrugging. It was safe to tell them as they had no idea where it was and even if they did, they weren't fans of stargates. Besides, if wraith found out anything from these people, they weren't going anywhere.

"It's kinda of a dumb name," Rodney said, noticing her expression. "We got beaten up in school about it."

"Where exactly is Earth?" Cualli asked, still perplexed.

"Not in this galaxy," Daniel said. "We came a long way and we need to make sure we can get back soon."

"Then I hope you don't get lost following my ship," Cualli said happily.


	18. To the gods

Cualli's 'ship' had turned out to be a wraith dart, stolen and refurbished. Only Daniel wanted to ask questions about it, but decided he'd already ha an answer when he noticed the painted decorations were in blood. He also decided not to tell Todd; either the wraith already knew, or he could break the new to himself.

"Let me guess: I'm watching him," Rodney said, putting as much angry pout into the sentence as possible.

"Well, I'm not," John said.

"Huh?" Daniel asked, suddenly realizing they were talking. "I was taking notes, what?"

"He's obviously not going to be any help," John said. "Besides, we need him to look like this trip had a point."

"What about the datapad we found?" Daniel asked.

"So my choices are to pick through dead monster bits or babysit a live one?" Rodney asked. His statement would be in disbelief if he hadn't gotten used to his own bad luck by now.

Todd turned to him with a look that showed every situation involving the humans from Atlantis ended up thought of with the same attitude.

"I'm going to earn those fifty bucks," Rodney growled.

….

Even before landing, they could hear the drumbeats. They landed the jumper next to several dozen other darts, each stolen and morbidly decorated, as the deep sound reverberated through the craft.

As all four exited the craft onto a smooth, paved plaza, they were hit hard by both the intensity of the sound and the heaviness of the heat. Ahead of them was a tall step pyramid, the source of the noise and decorated with feathers, flowers, and dancers along with participants of a festival currently underway, uninterrupted by that arrival of their strange ship. Behind them was a crowd of thousands, each member as scantily clad, dark-haired, and similarly ruddy-brown in skin as Cualli. Families, from tiny infants to the crooked elderly had swarmed here, standing in delight at the edifice that pointed towards the great disk in the sky that had shaped their lives and bodies.

Looking at the top of the pyramid was like peering into hell itself. Each progression of steps was more intricate in decoration and worship. More dancers swaying to the visceral drumbeats, dressed only in blood and beads; more statues, morbidly eloquent pieces of art taller than a human created from pieces of the dead, likely human and wraith together; more performers with instruments, giant drums shaped by bones, horns decorated with teeth, and harps with skulls at the base.

None of these hinted at the ceremony at the peak, nor pointed to the stairs, soaked in wave after wave of old and dried blood, not the color of rust, if it could ever grow tired.

The music and movement suddenly ceased, as if a blade had sliced through it, cutting it short and bleeding silence. The quiet was worse than the heat or the music had been, sending shivers under the sweat of the newcomers. Up top, glittering in the sun's glory, were a wraith and a human. Both were heavily decorated, the human in nothing more than beads and a cape of feathers, the wraith covered in gold jewelry and powder. The nails and chains had been removed from the wraith, but the thing merely stood behind the human, obediently indifferent.

The human spread his arms, throwing open the cape of feathers, each shining in the bright sunlight, releasing it to the breeze, a shattered rainbow, each piece flying to freedom, glittering as it left.

The human stood facing the crowd in exultation as the wraiths hand slowly curled over his shoulder, smearing gold across his dark chest as the wraiths hand made its way over the human's heart.

The human began to collapse as the wraith started to feed, bending down to follow the silent human, revealing a priest, practically somber in attire compared to the other two. Neither human, priest of victim showed either remorse or fear as they watched, inches away, as the wraith fed.

Even Todd was silent and unable to fathom what he should feel as the priest's knife shot through the wraith's throat and the crowd cheered louder than the music before.

"Rodney, keep your mouth shut," John ordered.

Rodney ignored him and threw up on the paved stones.

"Never mind," John said before turning to Todd. "Don't' get any ideas. You either!" he yelled at Daniel, who was already distracted in taking notes.


	19. Finding the Void

The city had been planned in a large six-spoked wheel, emanating from the pyramid. Sacrifices and ceremonies face the residential sections, neat, white, uniform houses between clean and straight streets. Everything was clean, save for the old markings of symbols that even from the base of the pyramid they were all sure were drawn in blood.

There were thousands of people here, hundreds to each wraith, each one resembling their escort on the other planet. The dull yellow eyes never once turned to them, all the more startling as dozens of dark brown faces were always turned to study the newcomers in contrast. The humans reciprocated, as the natives were the only ones dressed for the heat as what little clothes they wore were glued on by their own sweat. The variety of their adornments was in the jewelry of shells, semi-precious stones, and ones; pierced ears and noses; and patterns of red body paint. Each person and their clothes were just a canvas to their own style of draped and stabbed collage and glistening fresco.

Despite the ominous feeling each symbol written in blood, no matter the harmless translation for it Daniel gave, it was he who noticed something else on the people of the planet. Nearly everyone had small scars on themselves; he even noticed they were neither hidden nor in an artistic matter and the only reason for them he could determine was ritualistic sacrifice of blood.

Only a tiny amount from each person…wraith wandering everywhere…celebrations of feeding them and then they die… skins used to purify the ground for living… he was seeing people on the cusp of cultural change; they were not longer worshipping the spiral, but conquering it now.

The amazement of all this tore at him; he had been shown a culture changing, stepping from one aspect of culture to another, the both sides to explore and watch as they progressed into their change. Yet walking next to him and drawing as much curiosity as he did, was Todd, who watched his people—possibly even relatives—mutilated, punished, and starved into being nothing more than automatons, worshipped for slowly dying after years of torture. Daniel had to wonder, was this due to Todd's cruel nature he had been warned about, or was truly the cry for help and sympathy Todd had said it was? Was he torn emotionally for the wraith's amusement or was he torn because the wraith trusted both of his strongest aspect as aid? Or perhaps this was a test to see if humanity could truly be trusted?

As usual, the wraith was silent and expressionless. Answers would have to come after he found some for his alien ally.

…..

Cualli led the group to her own house, a spacious but barely decorated house some blocks away. Doorways were nothing more than holes covered by sheets, after all, with hungry wraith prowling around each house, who would dare break in?

She paid no attention and was annoyed when the group had stopped to witness how dangerous the wraith still were. The pity for the wraiths was suddenly gone as it raised it's blade against someone who had seconds ago knocked another person to the ground. Dull and lifeless eyes were suddenly full of anger and frustration that turned into malicious glee at attacking the man. Even more frightening was when the human authorities arrived, only to free the wraith's only hand and reward him for his actions.

At that, John started forward, only for Daniel to grab his arm tightly to stop him. John didn't resist as Daniel pulled him away; instead he looked toward Todd, who was expressionless. There was no jealousy that another was allowed to feed; there was no ire at how another wraith was treated. No emotions were stirred at the sight. Todd was more wraith than any of them had ever seen.

Even Rodney knew that the sudden stoicism was the only form of protection he could give them. Here, he belonged to them; he was property. He might as well be an inanimate object, pulled along by a string here. He should act like one.

Only Daniel knew how to treat such a situation; he'd spent years facing situations that turned the world upside down to look like a giant question mark. He'd seen humanity where others never knew it could be. He'd seen it vanish in the blink of an eye. He knew that you have better be prepared for when it was gone, or all you'd have is emptiness.


	20. Resistance

The four were shown the guest room at Cualli's house. While the people were their own individual portrait of their place in society, the houses were bland inside and out. The two beds in the guestroom were almost purely decorative. The windows were just as hollow and barely covered as the doors. There was a loud, metallic scraping sound outside, oscillating in pitch and volume; a wraith was outside, pacing back and forth.

Every human was thankful there was hardly any breeze, while Todd stopped giving them what little attention he had for them, reserving it for something for important later.

"So, what are we going to do about food?" Rodney asked, sitting on the bed, whose rock-hard surface was comfortable, compared to what he'd see outside.

"We've got rations on the ship," John suggested, wondering what Todd was thinking about, given the lack of expression on his face.

"We've got enough for, what, a day? We're finally where we can get a cooked meal and there's no way we can eat one," Rodney said sourly.

"Maybe we could work for food, Daniel said, pulling out a pad to take notes on from his pack.

Suddenly Cualli, who'd been watching them only to see if they'd do anything she considered rude again, grabbed John's arm and pulled him towards the doorway. "He…seemed interested in talking," she said brusquely. "Now would be a good time." Even Todd noticed her odd behavior as she yanked him past the curtain.

"And so it begins," Rodney said, rolling his eyes.

"I'm actually relieved she's interested in him," Daniel said. "I just hope he can handle whatever surprises she has."

"Trust me, from all his bragging, he can handle anything," Rodney said, rolling his eyes. The only thing to distract him from hunger or wraith being far creepier than they already were was to listen about John banging alien girls. This planet sucked.

"That's not the kind of surprise I meant," Daniel said.

"Todd," Daniel said, catching the wraith's attention before tossing a small camera to him. "Hold onto that."

"And now you've gone crazy," Rodney said. He wondered how much insanity he could put up with if he had something eat. How Todd ignored this kind of stuff must have been a very difficult skill to master.

"I'm making him my assistant; that way he's officially ours and important," Daniel said, going back to his notes, either not noticing or not caring about Rodney's tone. "How would you protect him?"

"I try not to get into situations where I have to protect wraith," Rodney said, his tone suddenly changing to nervousness. He didn't want to think how he needed Todd to fight off the replicators. He really didn't want to think about the time he was worried about Todd's life so he could save his sister. He didn't want to. He was afraid enough for his sister; he didn't want to contemplate wanting to save the life of a wraith purely for it's own worth and the ethics of it. Why Daniel had willingly gotten himself tangled up in such a situation he also was afraid of.

"Don't get me anymore involved in this than I already am," Rodney demanded. "I'm just here trying not to die and hoping you or John aren't going to get yourselves killed."

"What about Todd?" Daniel asked. The wraith either wasn't paying attention to the conversation, or was hiding it well.

"He can keep himself from getting killed," Rodney said nonchalantly. "He's good at it. Watch out for that, by the way."

Todd showed no interest in the conversation, let alone reacted to it. He was staring at the window, he curtain moving like an injured bird. He was the only one who noticed the sounds from outside had stopped five minutes ago.


	21. Darkness

John seemed pleased with whatever he and Cualli had been doing when they returned hours later. To Rodney's relief, John didn't feel like recapping what happened to him. To John's disappointment, Cualli then offered to talk to Daniel, showing him around the city. To further his disappointment, Cualli saw nothing strange about Daniel dragging Todd along.

In John's absence, Rodney had convinced Todd to remove the bones from the datapad so he could work on it. Since then nothing anyone did distracted him, as he didn't want to know what they were doing or talking out… until now. John had brought with him the one thing that could tear Rodney away from something short of an imminent life-threatening disaster: food. No matter what it was made of, Rodney knew food when he smelled it.

"So much for all the clues that this place is dangerous for wraith," John muttered, setting the food—something obviously spicy wrapped in thin bread.

"Should I be worried this has meat in it?" Rodney asked nervously.

"They've got… rabbit-mole things; don't worry about it," John said, barely paying attention. "How can people so creepy be so friendly?"

"I'm just wondering when we leave," Rodney managed between bites.

"She said she had to go back to the other planet tomorrow, so if we can come up with an excuse, we get leave then. It's not like we're coming back or she'll follow us… at least successfully."

"Excuse?" Rodney slurred. The need for food and knowledge for safety was equal, but the need to communicate well was swiftly dwindling.

"She likes it; and me," John said.

Rodney gave John a look, one that said 'are you sure?' to it. It was handy to have friends who understood nuances when you were starving.

"She said she did," john said. Sadly, other than her being interested in their next date, he had little to talk about… that he wanted to talk about. "Why would she have anything to do with Daniel, do you think?"

"Something about history or stuff," Rodney answered. "He tried to explain things to Todd about monkeys or something, but he didn't care either."

"Monkeys?" John asked, confused. "Did he mention clowns?"

"No, but I think some people set themselves on fire," Rodney said, turning back to the datapad now that he'd finished eating.

"Not quite as scary," John said.

….

Daniel had long ago forgotten hunger in the wake of exploring the pyramid. Cualli noticed he avoided the blood-stained steps and the top until last in his examination, but kept silent and distant. Instead, her focus was on Todd, who was silent and obedient as he followed Daniel all over as the man explored insignificant nooks and crannies and gibberish graffiti. She answered every question immediately and truthfully; the only knowledge she denied him was what she herself did not know.

When he did move on, he walked past the blood stains to the top of the pyramid. Todd stayed at the bottom, where Cualli finally ignored him. She had been most intrigued by Todd taking pictures. He attempted to be discreet and Daniel had turned off the flash, but Cualli knew of everything he was recording for his human.

Daniel was now admiring how the sunset colored the city to resemble a bonfire and contemplating if it was intentional.

Cualli cast one last glance at the wraith, who didn't seem to notice her as he stood in front of the pyramid, and climbed up after Daniel.

"Why do you ask all these questions?" she asked, sitting next to him. "Why would knowing all those useless things be important?"

"Because even the smallest detail can change everything we know about a culture," Daniel said.

"Do you study other cultures?" Cualli asked.

"I've been studying other cultures since I was a child," Daniel said happily.

"Do you enjoy it?" she asked, her stoicism changing to honest curiosity now.

"I've always enjoyed it," he said. "What are the teotl to you? Personally, I mean. What do you think of them?"

"They are…" she said awkwardly. "there." She shrugged. She hadn't expected him to catch her off guard like that. "They are convenient; that is all. I leave killing them to the priests.

"What are they to you?"

"Mysterious," Daniel said, looking down at Todd as Cualli leaned her head on his shoulder. "They defy study, but at the same time, they expect all their secrets to be discovered if you look close enough and work hard enough."

"He does what you say," she said, confused, yet unable to chase away how much the words frightened her. "What mystery is there anymore?"

"Learning about him is why he acts that way," Daniel said, hoping she didn't catch on to his discomfort. At least it technically wasn't a lie.

"Doesn't that give them power over you?" she asked, almost frightened.

"It shouldn't," he said. It wasn't an answer. It was a realization.

"Are you alright?" she asked, putting her hand to his chest in worry and affection.

"It's just the cold," he replied. He didn't move her hand as his chest suddenly felt empty. He had realized that only now had he understood the plight of the wraith here. The planet earth was nearly two hundred million square miles of land and sea. This planet was more or less the same. Every one of those hundreds of thousands of square miles of land that could hold a city was filled with hundreds—perhaps thousands—of wraith.

Worshipped though they may be, they were not just hurt to serve the needs of the humans. They were not a people always being crushed under a boot of tyranny, but a people deprived f their own identity. While other wraith had no past and faced an unchanging or nonexistent future, these were removed from time. Everything that Daniel studied, everything important that made a culture and defined a people in their own collective identity, had been deprived from these wraith for generations. They depended upon their cruel masters for everything, shelter, food, safety, language, even the presence of each other. There was no power over the humans that they could achieve. The alternative was to be meaningless and alone. Could even wraith survive that?


	22. Desperation

Todd wasn't even hinting at an answer as to whether or not he had heard Daniel and Cualli. It didn't matter. Daniel knew he'd stumbled onto the revelation Todd had trusted him to discover one way or another.

Realizing that made his discover another, for more chilling revelation. Todd didn't just nihilistically believe that it was inevitable that john would shoot him; this was his deathwish. This was indeed a reward for what little Daniel had given him, but Todd had used him so he could die free, watching the last human to try and play with his head suffer for his sins or rag their entire race into pure evil—just as they were meant to.

Todd just stood there in the room, unaffected by the world. He was a rock that refused to move, letting the stream choose its own course.

Daniel wished he could call it arrogance. That was the problem with Todd. He didn't have arrogance. Being better than others wasn't a superpower or a greater disposition to him. It was a weapon, something years ago he had hoped to wield alongside the humans in Atlantis as equals. This wasn't even relying on cruel imagination. This was relying on facts. These people, everyone in Atlantis, the secrets they could literally abuse… John had shown Todd hope. He'd just shown him hope in the form of having something to laugh at when he committed suicide.

"Where's Rodney?" Daniel asked, suddenly realizing the engineer wasn't anywhere around. Usually Rodney waited in the far corner of the room, refusing to talk to Daniel or Todd and either eating, or playing a silent game of trying to make the wraith outside to stop making noise.

"He left," Todd answered.

Daniel jumped slightly, startled. He hadn't actually expected Todd to react. "Where?" He asked, suddenly realizing he was even more confused than about Todd's behavior. Rodney hated this place and everything about it other than Cualli's chest.

"The jumpers."

"Why?" Daniel asked, somehow relieved that the answer was at least beginning to make sense.

"McKay and Sheppard wanted to negotiate for food."

Daniel's only reply was to roll his eyes. They only thing they had brought to trade for were medical supplies and guns. He knew which ones Cualli would be interested in.

"What about you?" Daniel asked. He didn't want to know, but he knew someone had to broach the subject before it turned into at least one of them getting killed.

"Here I belong to you three," Todd said. "That is your responsibility,"

Daniel put his hand to his temple; his head suddenly hurt. This was the best thing to ever happen and the worst thing to ever happen. He hoped Todd Knew he felt this way. "This…sucks." That was the best way to explain his feelings.

Todd was genuinely surprised by his wording, raising what would have been an eyebrow.

"No, I have no idea what I'm going to do about your people," Daniel said, practically sighing the words.

"Do you want to?" Todd asked.

"Yes," he answered simply. Of all the things Daniel didn't want to think about, packing up and leaving without so much as blinking was something he didn't even want to just sum up to himself. He did want to because he knew it was transparently plausible. If John got bored and decided to ditch Todd, that would be that; it would be that simple.

"There is nothing to teach, then?"

Daniel knew exactly what Todd was referring to. Daniel had tried, but hadn't gotten far in explaining religion and philosophy to Todd. It had intrigued the wraith, but eons of never once pondering the metaphysical had barred him from understanding any of it. Daniel hadn't been allowed to teach much of Earth's history. All Todd knew of hope were vague teachings he could barely grasp at, but knew had changed both individuals and the entire world with their knowledge.

The idea had potential—to at least give the wraith something to believe or think to relieve the pain of their situation—but just a calming thought wasn't going to help. It wouldn't help in anyway that would let Daniel live with himself.

Besides, what idea would help them best? All of them, no matter how peaceful or warlike, no matter how submissive or assertive, they all said there was something greater waiting beyond life itself. Would that even help? Would a life taken by a wraith to survive be seen as granting the victim heaven? Would it inspire cruelty? Suicide? Would wraith cease their loyalty to each other in rescuing commanders?

How could he choose what to teach the wraith? There were too many ways to cause a galaxy-wide disaster, both from what to do in life and what would happen after it?

"What do you believe in?" Daniel asked. "What…what's the closest you have to a faith?" He'd never asked before and he would never know why. Daniel took comfort in the fact that Todd at least understood the concept of a faith. But did he have anything close to it? And if he did, how would a wraith tell him the meaning of something abstract, how something meant more than what it was when there wasn't even a concept of art until he had come along?

Todd took a step forward with a careful gazed fixed on Daniel's.

Daniel was curious, but by now had no fear of the wraith. Unlike the others, he knew just how important trust was to Todd and preferred to use it as a defense rather than abuse it.

Todd, however, didn't know that. He was still waiting to know. That was why he hesitated as he stood in front of Daniel, the metallic piercing of the ignorant wraith feet away giving sound to plaguing doubts and fears of both men.


	23. Dead Ash

Daniel was suddenly somewhere else. He had never told Todd of any visions similar to this. Thus he was surprised as the transition into one was in no way jarring.

What he experienced, on the other hand…

Despite what he saw, he appreciated the long, slow, gaze over the environment to adjust to his vision. This wasn't a vision from a human, not even one blended with another alien.

He was a wraith, staring at the aftermath of a battle. For miles in ever direction, the ground was littered with bodies. The ground beneath them, only visible as the breeze picked it up to make the dead filthier, was sand. The only life that had dared to tread here had come with the intention of eliminating it; the land was—save for him—truly lifeless.

Questions and knowledge began flooding Daniels mind. Knocked down by weapons, only now had his bleeding wound healed, he has spent hours lying with those who were never meant to have met this fate. How many were enemies? How many were meant to be enemies and could merely have been strangers or allies of another queen? How many were his brethren? What fates had been destroyed today in the name of humans using them to fight over territory?

Then it dawned on him that it had been a long time since he had thought of such things. A near-literal mist in his mind had kept him from thinking such things. He had no idea how long it had been since he thought so deeply, even if it was so simply.

Then it dawned on him why. He reached up to his forehead and felt holes that had barely been sealed up. His hand moved about his matted hair—he would have taken pride in it's beauty had he ever been given the chance to ever be alone with his own emotions—and merely upon touching them, three large nails fell to the ground.

Just like the bodies, the nails lay there in the sand: bloody, mangled, already forgotten by all but one who no one wanted to survive. A miracle had happened to loosen these, and feeling the matted patch of dried blood, he doubted he should be all that thankful.

Everything was silent-even his own breath and the breeze still trying to cover the bodies were too quiet to hear—everything was empty and he was lost. He looked to the sky, more lifeless emptiness; there wasn't even a cloud to herald the life of the crops. The dun was dipping below dunes and tiny houses as the sky quickly oozed from green to blue to purple to black. Sparkling stars quickly began to dot the black velvet dome above him.

These stars were completely unrecognizable and silent. He was too far away and the place was too threatening for anyone to come for him. Yet, there was comfort in their stillness. Each star shone brightly in this place, far from the barbarous creatures who drowned them out with their torches, signaling a new world, never perfect, but free from the inflicted mist that prevented one's own thoughts. There was fear there, on every single one, both wraith and human, but there was the privilege of fear and the freedom to find it.

The vision faded, the great expanse leaving him in the now uncomfortably tiny room and at the mercy of the stuffy midday heat.

Todd backed away; for the first time, he was truly nervous is Daniel's presence.

Daniel didn't know what to say. He was too lost in apprehension and confusion to even notice the silence from outside.

He had more than anyone on this planet would have from a wraith, and far more than even John would ever get from Todd. A chill went down his spine as he finally realized what Todd expected of his former ally and just how ambiguous he was. Todd hadn't come here with a plan; he'd come here to show Daniel the true nature of humanity.

Rodney had no care for the man who had saved the life of his sister. John wanted to help without effort, preferring to hand over powerful weapons to people he was already disgusted with than assuage his own guilt. He… he after so much elation about learning about wraith, after finding a way to study the meaning and origins of religion and philosophy itself… he had traded it in for this glimpse of a culture that had shaped and conquered so much of his own planet while it's origins remained unattainable until now.

The best and brightest of human amounted to this: selfishness, distraction, fear, sloth, greed, and denial.

Everything he'd done before—tried to do—was nothing here.

This seemed so much harder though.

Then, it dawned on him. Everything he'd done, he'd do again.

"Can you… I need to show you something that way," Daniel whispered. "John's going to kill me over this."

Before concentrating, he heard some quiet promise of secrecy; he didn't know if he heard it or if it was only in his mind.


	24. Coatl

Daniel couldn't sleep. He wondered how he had ever been able to sleep at all on this planet.

It was as if everything had waited, only for all of them to seem worse on this very night. The night seemed colder and the darkness thicker and blacker. Todd's glowing eyes seemed more piercing and more defined this night; the wraith seemed farther away this night.

Daniel kept thinking back to yesterday. Everything seemed wonderful, and yet nothing seemed right moments afterward; now it all seemed skewed and the subtleties auguries for doom.

Rodney had fixed the datapad, thought only to impress extra food out of Cualli. He didn't care what was on it, justifying his ignorance with 'it had pieces of dead monster in it.' Nevertheless, Daniel had been excited at the information on it; reading it to Todd. It was full of scientific data on early wraith, developing a new species; slowly adjusting and perfecting traits like a new breed of dog. Everything humans feared about wraith was some advantage to a group of ancients; everything strange nuance to them was a weakness put in place in hopes of controlling them. After hours and hours of reading about people turned into Todd's people, there were finally a few short personal pieces of growing fear of them. With so many of the new creatures, they began to show 'an annoying inclination towards freedom, as seen in other sites.' The last entry was a suggestion of five different places on the planet to drop bombs in hopes to annihilate anything alive.

Todd had barely paid attention; he even admitted it when Daniel asked him about it. The wraith said he had had no idea why such knowledge was important to him, given what he already knew. The ancients were gone, and he had no idea what to do with their hidden knowledge that had pushed them to create his kind. An even more pressing question he'd told Daniel was that he had even less of an idea what the antive wraith would do with the knowledge.

After that, he'd left with Cualli, who had asked him to leave his teotl behind this time. He remembered standing on the pyramid, a monument to eons of blind ritual murder, and all he did was talk to her softly. He talked of the origins of her people and wraith with the same awe and romance he did with ancient myths and her eyes glimmered with the same intrigue. She was honest in her interest and admiration of him. he had shown someone else how great the pull of knowledge was, how much the desire for more, like addicted to a drug, one could be with just one taste. She wanted more just like he did; she loved it when she found it and the pieces fell together with him. She wanted to explore and use it with him.

Then the worst of the best happened. He didn't remember when he left in the evening and after hours of trying, he still couldn't remember how it happened. He mentioned his wife. He told her everything about her, feeling as if something had finally broken inside of his head and he couldn't help it. He should have insulted her, he should have corrected her, he should have done something to tell her how horrible she was, but all he did was talk to her as she comforted him with words. She wasn't overbearing; she didn't hit on him; she didn't try and push him in any direction with her words. She, a woman born and commanding of this cruel culture was the greatest comfort he'd ever had in a decade.

It was then that Daniel noticed the silence—save for Rodney's snoring. The piercing metal screech had vanished for the day and was still missing.

Daniel sat up on the bed and lifted the curtain over the window to peek outside. A matching set of glowing eyes stared back from the blackness.

"You've been talking to him?" he asked, turning back to Todd. It wasn't an accusation; it wasn't a veiled threat; it wasn't even intrigue. It was just curiosity to his question.

Daniel saw Todd's eyes flick towards where John was sleeping for half a second before answering. "Yes."

"Have you told him?" Daniel asked.

"No." At first, the other wraith didn't want to be spoken to in his mind. Speaking to another wraith was forbidden here. Why would speaking in minds not carry the same sentence? Besides, he had no idea who this foreign wraith was. Why associate with him at all? But as security became more and more evident, so did his curiosity, what there was of it.

"I needed to know what he knows and tell him you three are to be kept safe. He is slow in answering," Todd said. "It is taking time to convince him to speak with others."

"What are they going to do?" Daniel asked. He hasn't told the others anything about what was going on. They had tuned out immediately when he brought up any history he learned, and doubted either would appreciate him being the catalyst for a revolution involving wraiths. He didn't want to be at ground zero if he could help it.

"Watch." It wasn't a command, it was a group decision. Underneath the pain, the scrambled minds, the lack of ever knowing of what a culture was, let alone a community, they could easily for the hive mind they were so notorious for. For everything that made the wraith so dreaded, it was the human aspects that were truly feared: courage, perseverance, determination, and communication no matter how much to try to stop it.

History had come to praise everyone who rose up against other who had tortured them. He would be the only one beyond themselves to praise this part of history.

With that knowledge, his mind had finally settled and let him happily fall asleep.


End file.
